We just got back from a four day trip to Tahoe with a group from Care2. Ashley, her sister, and I pretty much started out beginners and by the end of the trip felt really comfortable maneuvering around on the slopes. We went to two popular ski resorts in the area: Sierra at Tahoe and Kirkwood Moutain Resort. Pictures from our Tahoe ski trips can be found by clicking the image below:

I just got home from my weekly Ruby on Rails (RoR) class meeting and have some first impressions. My instructor, Rob Tsuk, comes from a fairly strong background in OOP, is extremely enthusiastic about the RoR approach to web application development, and loves his three Boston Terriers madly. The introductory lecture given tonight was a little all over the place and, had I not have had some familiarity to RoR, I would have been greatly intimidated. That said, I think most, if not all, of the class has played with RoR before (from some of the questions I was hearing) and were likely able to follow the topic jumping without much difficulty. I was excited to hear that we will be covering some of the advanced topics of RoR and some of the ones I have had to grapple with myself such as: capistrano, mongrel, and production deployment, Rails 2.0 odds-and-ends, and RSpec and BDD. It is definitely a shot of inspiration to start tackling more RoR in my spare time!

Ashley and I used to frequent an excellent coffee shop in Austin, TX called Triumph Cafe known to us for their wonderful Cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese Coffee). After moving to Silicon Valley, more specifically San Jose (known for the second largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam), we searched for another good Vietnamese coffee shop. As luck would have it one was built a block away! Ashley and I now frequent this quaint coffee shop known as Crema Coffee Roasting Company. The owners are in fact Vietnamese and warm and welcoming every time we drop in.

While chatting with the owner, Trung (June), she discussed a local meetup that took place in the coffee shop having something to do with “Ruby.” She did not have to say anymore before I was on Meetup looking it up. Sure enough she was right, the San Jose Ruby Hackfest meetups were taking place at Crema! How convenient! Having previously (intermittently) attended the Silicon Valley Rails meetups this sounded much more attractive: the Sane Jose Ruby Hackfest is a kinesthetic meetup and now merely one block away. I am now signed up to attend and eagerly await meeting other Rubyists in the neighborhood (quiet literally).

I am excited to say that I will be taking a Ruby on Rails (RoR) course at Foothill College starting on January 8th, 2008. I have generated a ton of complex questions from various things I have encountered exploring RoR and finally I will be able to get some answers on an interpersonal level. While I hope the course content will be enlightening I expect I will take more away in terms of personal contacts (I would highly welcome the assistance of a mentor), design paradigms, and best practices. I consider the $100 and light commute to be cheap for all that I will gain!