Well I haven’t posted in a while, so I figured it was my duty to do so while I had some free time. Work at CloudRaker has been great so far, I’m having a blast and everyone is great. We’ve launched a project last week, which I assume I can mention since it’s live. It’s a christmas greeting card for BRP. It was not a huge project, but the deadline was tight which made it fun. Aside from that, I’m still working on that big project I mentioned in another post, and that’s going pretty nicely as well. So far, I’ve got nothing to whine about at CloudRaker. We’re having our christmas party on the 18th I think, so that should be pretty fun. I’ve been getting used to my MBP though I still don’t feel fully comfortable. I hate that fucking apple button! But I’m getting there.

If you’ve notice, there’s a few additions to the site. I’ve been playing around with WordPress lately, and I made some modifications to this blog. Among them is the lifestream, which pretty much aggregates all my activity from social networks. If you want to stalk me, that is the perfect tool as I keep those network pretty up to date. You can read more about social networks on the lifestream page, and you can see the archives over here. I’ve also made it mandatory to register in order to comment, so go ahead and do that.

I’ve also created another blog-like site. I’m going to use it to post lyrics that I like, since I’m a huge fan of lyrics. It’ll also be pretty much music related, so if you’re a fan of lyrical music, check it out. I’ve called it fusi0n lyrics.

Well, it’s time to recap the last week, which was my first at CloudRaker. Overall, I wasn’t wrong about my first impression. Everyone’s pretty cool, and the work is more challenging, even if it’s only because I’m not an expert with CakePHP. The “contract” I’m on right now is rather impressive, not necessarily code-wise (although it is!) but just with the level of achievement the client represents. I’m not sure what I can and cannot disclose, so I’ll keep it to subtle allusions. What matters is that it’s pretty big, and it’s certainly valorizing to be working on it. Aside from actual work, they gave me a Mac Book Pro to work. Isn’t that great? I’ve never actually owned a Mac, so I’m still getting the hang of things. That fucking apple button is the most annoying thing in the computer field since spam. However, I did manage to gather my knowledge and installed Ubuntu on it. Ha. All in all, I’m looking forward to Monday morning, which is, if you know me at all, quite something.

The first week was a bit unsettling though. Movember was in full swing, and it was rather scary to be surrounded with hairy people. You can get your dose of fright on the CloudRaker Movember site, but be warned, it’s hairy and alive. However, the awards are out and the mustaches are off, which is a relief! I’m strangely looking forward to participating next year, I’ll have to meditate on the motives for that. Either way, my hat is off to the CloudRaker, Taxi and Toxa for not being afraid to look ridiculous for a good cause.

more…

I’ve been looking for a job for one full week, and it seems that I found a fit in this Montreal web company. They’re called CloudRaker, and they’re located downtown Montreal, just an stone’s throw north of Ste-Catherine and De Bleury. They’re pretty close, actually, 2.3 kilometers. I’ll be able to walk/longboard/rollerblade it in summer, and take a rather easy bus route in the winter. Sweet stuff. I’ll be working on basically the same kind of things I was working on back at NVI, with a little more frontend thrown in. Nothing I can’t handle. They seem to be a pretty cool gang there. They’ve been around for 8 years, and they still have that startup feel to everything, which is pretty rare for expanding companies. Looking forward to seeing the challenges ahead and meeting everyone! Be sure to check out their blog.

On another note, I’ve been playing quite a lot with Wordpress lately, namely, this Wordpress. I’ve installed a few plugins and made some modifications of my own. If you intent to browse around, I’m sure you’ll come across many of them: AJAXed Wordpress (AWP), cformsII, and OpenID. They’ve all turned out pretty nice so far. Also added two pages (up top) – Links and Contact. One is a feed from my newly created Delicious account, the other allows you to contact me.

I’ve also been playing a lot with Zend Framework lately for a project I’m working on. I’ll probably be posting snippets of code eventually, stuff that might be useful to the general public, so stay tuned.

Sooo many updates to post, so many things to say. Not sure where to start! Let’s go with the fun stuff, that’s always nice. I went to see a Canadiens game last Wednesday – the first home game of the season. It’s been amazing as usual. I’d really love to be able to compare crowds throughout the NHL, I do believe Montreal fans are quite hard to top in terms of ambiance, involvement and general fanaticism – in the good way. It’s always fun to see the Habs play. I went with my sister and a friend, we (and by “we” I really mean “I“) managed to get tickets in the white section of the Molson Ex zone. For those of you who ever went to the Bell Centre for a game, you just know that’s where the party’s at. Every chant, every wave, everything that spreads throughout the attendance starts right there. Plus there’s some ridiculously hot babes in equally ridiculously tight outfits doing crowd animation. We were sitting below the section with animation though, but we got to stare at her butt often enough were able to participate anyway – just couldn’t win free beers. Anyhow, it was a fun time, and the Habs won, so it’s all good.

On another note, I’ve come to an agreement with my bosses at NVI. It’s been some time since I’ve felt challenged at work, and I was really starting to get bored and demotivated, so we agreed that it was better for both of us that I leave. Don’t get me wrong, NVI is a great place to work, with great, great people. I’ve simply done my time there. I will surely remember NVI as one of the best places I’ve ever worked, and I’ve worked at a lot of places. So I’m currently looking for other opportunities. I have several interesting companies that I want to talk to in Montreal that I think would benefit from hiring me, but you know how that is – there’s what you want and what you get! I’m hopeful though, and not stressed one bit about finding a new job. The market’s in pretty high demand for programmers right now, even with the financial crisis, so it’s all good. For those of you from NVI reading this article, worry not, I will keep contact with you. After all, I do live 3 minutes from your offices and have a relatively known interest in alcohol and parties!

I’ve also thought of continuing my project of self-employment. It’s kind of difficult, to be honest with you. I really want to do it, but I know it’s a lot of work, especially in the beginning. And I don’t want to create something to end up with exactly the same feel to it as the company I just left. I’d like to do it. I love to code, it’s what I do. What I don’t want to do is everything that’s not code, basically. Public Relations, Account Management, Marketing, Integration, Design, Sales… all of that is not for me. It’s too early in the lifecycle of my company to hire people to do that for me, so I’m kinda stuck here. I’ll have to think about it. Either way, I’ve started the process already. Registered the domain, hosted it, and will register the name this week so that if I want to go with it, everything will be ready. I also need to talk with some key people that might be interested in launching this with me, but all in due time…

On that my friends, I shall conclude my article with some wise words from a friend of mine…

Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.

Wise words indeed…