Joshua Arnold

There’s too much pressure. Pressure to expand on the summarizing statements that I always begin with and to close with some enjoyable sentiment that lives up to some mysterious expectation. It’s almost like I feel the need to cater my words to what I think people are expecting to read. Meanwhile, I secretly want to tell you all about how beautiful the weather is and why I’m content with not having anything “exciting” planned for today. I’ve never been one to over analyze this type of thing – certainly not enough to force me into some sort of writer’s block. I honestly think I’m just really out of touch lately.

I’ve been working on some new initiatives at work that are really engaging and it’s been lot of fun. I’m leading our new open-source initiatives and we’re all working hard to polish off the first release of our upcoming Framework (code-name “SnapDragon”) in time for the Austin CodeCamp this May. I’m also working with our Creative Director and my friend Rex to revamp our website and create a company blog as well. Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy.

I wish I could explain to you everything that has happening with me recently but I don’t know where to start. I’ve been really contemplating some heavy topics, each of which I could probably write a few pages and probably will in the upcoming weeks. Everything from tacit knowledge to reflecting over this past year, there’s a lot to talk about. Undoubtedly, you’ve seen the new look and feel of my blog and you’ve noticed a sudden change in the tone of my writing. I want to introduce the new tone with a few posts and really get back to writing more often – even if it’s a random thoughts that I had while I was driving to work.

In the meantime, play around a little and discover some of the posts that you may have missed. I’ve had plenty of these posts written and let them sit around since I never had a place for them but with the new direction of my blog, I’ve included them in the various categories. I hope you’ll take the team to read a few and open up some discussion. You know how much I love to talk about these things.

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Technorati Tags: informative, proace

Life has been slightly unbalanced lately. Well, maybe “unbalanced” isn’t exactly the right word…perhaps consistent is the term I’m searching for. I’m desperately trying to force myself into more of a routine and I’m getting closer.

My work on the RiderRally project is becoming more intense lately as we ramp up for our next release in late October. I’m working very heavily with location-based information (hence the title of the entry) which has been pretty fun and challenging. I’ll be posting some of the specifics of this in my technical blog.

I’ve been working on several initiatives at works from Professional Development to Internal Framework Development. I’ve been pushing to incorporate training courses in a variety of technologies/skills,  more diverse standards in documentation, and reusable code-bases for the company. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, I’ve also been finding time to consult on other projects, conference calls, and to be the “go-to” guy for any technical interviews. Needless to say, it’s been a little crazy lately.

Despite the workload, my schedule tends to work itself out quite well and I have plenty of free time. I’ve been working in time to go to the gym and general down-time as well. I just need to get more of a structured routine so I can feel a little better about everything. I feel like I’m living in chaos if I don’t have at least SOME continuity in my day.

I had planned to write a little about my thoughts after reading Blue Like Jazz but I’ll save for that for my next entry. Time to watch Wicker Park and head to bed.

Love to All,
Josh

Technorati Tags: announcements, career, informative, reflection, self-learning, updates, work

Hey everyone,

I had a little accident with my phone and I’ve lost all of my contacts.
Please send me a text (or call) with your name/number so I can re-add you!

Love to all,
Josh

Technorati Tags: announcement, informative

Obvious statement of the evening:

It’s a long and very intensive process to ensure that we end up with what we really need.

I originally thought that I was going to write about what I was working on this evening. Well, it’s actually what I’ve been working on for the past few months. It’s just truly amazing how long it takes to really get anything done.

We’re working on some exciting new features and working with a lot of exciting technologies. Sometimes it’s just frustrating how much of the leg work needs to get done before I can actually start doing the FUN stuff. It’s getting there but it’ll be about another week until I can get there.

This week is going to be a busy one. I doubt that I’ll get much time to write until next week (not unlike last week although last week I had time and just couldn’t find anything truly interesting to write about). I’ll be working with the exciting technologies and might have some things to show by then as well.

I finished the book I wrote about last time: Blue Like Jazz.
I’ll be writing about that very soon as well as some of the open mics I’ll be visiting soon.

Love to All,
Josh

Technorati Tags: coffee, informative, music, reflections, updates, work

Most of you know that I’m quite the workaholic. I enjoy spending my time in front of a computer when it involves learning something new, pushing the envelope, and working on a project that I genuinely find interesting. You must also know that before this project, I’ve never had the privilege of working on a project like this for work. Instead, I would find projects to work on with friends outside of work that would engage me. So what happens when my job is to work on a project that I find interesting?

In short: I disappear for weeks at a time.

It’s been a rough past few weeks. That’s not to say that I haven’t enjoyed every minute of this experience, but the overall fact remains that this immediate switch has taken its toll on me. It’s been a true test of my abilities to see this project come together — and we’re still only roughly 70% complete. If you asked me what I expected to be doing when I first started here, I would have never guessed I’d be managing and leading the development of a project from scratch.

I’ve expanded my knowledge of so much these past few weeks and I have every intention of sharing what I have learned. I’m in the process of moving http://blogs.rev-net.com over to the server hosting this blog, and I will begin my technical blog at http://blogs.rev-net.com/jmarnold (along with Dave’s at http://blogs.rev-net.com/ddewinter).

In the meantime, if you haven’t heard from me too much in the past month or so it’s not that I don’t love you . I promise, I’m trying to get into the habit of allocating at least half an hour to writing everyday.

I’ll be back soon!

Technorati Tags: 2008 adventures, announcement, career, informative, rev-net, rider-rally

So, earlier this year, my friend Jason had a brilliant idea. There was tons of hype in the development community around Google’s android platform. Being the genius mastermind that Jason is, he began working on an idea to combine the aspects social networking, location-based services, and his love for mobile development. Not long after some brainstorming sessions, I found myself opening up Eclipse and working with him to develop and consume our REST service.

There were long days and there were tons of hours thrown into this project. Not only were we staring at a rough deadline with only two developers (that have full-time jobs), I moved to Austin in the middle of it! It’s also worth noting that when it comes to location-based services, EVERYBODY wants in. We saw competing projects popping up every single day. Despite the competition, we rest assured that our core idea was solid and more suitable for the general public than the services being developed. We kept moving forward.

We didn’t quite finish everything that we hoped to accomplish in time but we still made a LOT of progress and turned it in time. I don’t know what kind of competition we’re up against but I guarantee you, we’ll give them a run for their money .

Technorati Tags: 2008 adventures, announcement, announcements, development, google, ideas, informative, mobile, side projects

It’s taken me a little bit longer than I had planned to get back to blogging. Even with all the supposed “down time”, it feels like life has been moving at a 1000 miles per hour this past two weeks or so. Moving halfway across the country has the tendency to do that to you, I suppose. Nevertheless, I am back and I’ll start with a brief summary of what’s been happening with me.

Not too long ago, an opportunity presented itself. It would be risky and it would be stressful; but above all else, it felt like it would be worth it. After exhaustively discussing the situation with my family and quite a few of my close friends, I accepted an offer in Austin and put in my two weeks notice. I was “excused” from work two days after giving notice and had some down time to work on side projects and get ready for the big move. Needless to say, I spent more time on the side projects…

My friend Ben was kind enough to join me on my adventure across the country. We left at roughly 2:00am on March 20 and after two LONG days of driving/sleeping/and being completely disoriented, we found ourselves in Austin that Saturday night. I made a last minute decision to take my car out here so we followed each other the entire way. Word of advice? Don’t ever do that. Also, walkie talkies are the coolest invention. Ever.

So…I’m here in Austin, living with my friends Rex and Drew while I look for my own place, I’m part-managing and lead-developing my first project at work, and I am LOVING it. I’ll be posting regularly again and probably getting back into some more insightful and creative writing. It’s late and I need to get some rest but figured I’d get in a quick update.

Technorati Tags: 2008 adventures, announcements, austin, career, informative, work

These first few sentences are for you. You who wait five minutes to move after the light turns green. You also love to drive 20 miles below the speed limit. This baffles me. I’m not a strong advocate for speeding but you make me wish horrible things upon you when you go 35 in a 55. Oh, and this morning you cut me off because you weren’t smart enough to notice the very obvious “LANE ENDS IN 50ft” sign. You constantly run your mouth and nothing clever emerges. Instead, you attempt to convince everyone that they’re not clever enough to understand your wit. You lack common courtesy. You are a piece of crap, sir, but you do make my day slightly more entertaining.

It’s been one of those mornings, if you can’t tell. In fact, it’s been a few days of these mornings. I have great days but dear god, I can’t sleep and I can’t stop thinking…

Life is turning around for me. I’ve been following the news more carefully lately, I’m enjoying my job, I’ve had a life outside of work this week, and I’m genuinely happy. So of course I’d find something to distract myself from the simplicity of the happiness, right? Well, not completely distract. Let’s face it, I could probably brighten anyone’s mood right now because I have a plethora of energy. Maybe you punch people that are as happy as I am. That’s ok, I’d probably still be happy.

Nevertheless, my mind wanders so much lately. It’s probably because I had some emotions stir up in me that I didn’t even know could be stirred anymore. I’m interested to see what I’m going to do about them though. In fact, I’ll probably keep writing about the situation because it’s going to be pretty entertaining…

I have some things that I want to write about so I’ll probably get into some sort of multi-part series again pretty soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep posting random thoughts and indirectly explaining the odd emotional situation I’ve found myself in and how much I’m loving meeting some new people out here.

I think this entry was pointless.

Technorati Tags: informative, random

Well, I’ve been keeping myself busy lately. I’ve received horrible news that Bridge Academy Charter High School is closing. I’ll save my thoughts on this for another post but this has been eating away at me. I’ve been consuming my time with reading and working on a fun little blog aggregating application (should be released very soon).

Sorry for the delays in updating. Expect to see Chapter 6 this evening and more to come on the Bridge Academy issue very soon.

Technorati Tags: informative

Today was the last day!

If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have chapter three posted later tonight.

Technorati Tags: informative