howcheng.com: blog: comment

So I had taken two weeks off at the beginning of July, and I still didn't get around to writing anything in this blog. That's because I spent my entire vacation at home, working on the re-vamped JETAASC site. That work is still ongoing, and I'll get to it in a bit, but first the big news:

Amy said her first word! That's right, it was last night, and it was "Mama". She had been making the "ma" sounds for a bit, going "mamamamamama", but last night she made the sign for "Mommy" and then said distinctly, "Mama". It was pretty darn cool. Her first word was a little late compared to most babies, but she's apparently pretty advanced in other areas (she understands a lot of commands, is pretty good with a spoon for self-feeding), so it all evens out. Not that I was worried, since she was communicating just fine with us using signs and babbling different sounds ("dup" and "putt" were pretty common). We did schedule her to see an occupational therapist, however, since our pediatrician recommended it (her speech delays were more than 3 months behind) and my insurance was going to pay for it anyway, so we figured we might as well do it.

Besides speaking, she's been a social butterfly recently, going to a lot of birthday parties (six in six weeks). All of the other kids in her playgroup are older, turning two right about now, and in the younger playgroup, all the babies are right about one, so she kind of fits right in the middle. I'm not sure how much she enjoys the parties anyway because she's pretty shy and not a real mingler. So far at all the parties we just end up in a corner by ourselves while the other kids play, but she will probably get more social as she gets older.

Nancy is starting to organize herself for applying to CSU Channel Islands (in Camarillo) for a teaching credential. There's an informational session next week to get the details, but she's worried she'll have to take the GRE again, even though she already has a Master's degree. We'll see how that all goes.

So about the JETAASC site. I coded this thing four years ago as my very first dynamic PHP site, and they had been talking about getting a new design, but I just hadn't been able to do any work for them, having been swamped at work for the last few months. Fortunately for them, work on the Microsoft project trickled down in mid-June, so I was able to spare some time to start this (this still hasn't launched yet). My plan was to whack this thing out while I had the time, so I started that and worked through my vacation. At the office, work hasn't picked up yet, so I've been able to devote about half my time there to this thing. I'm redoing the entire site, including part of the database. One of the barriers to me working on the site before (in addition to the schedule) was that I just didn't want to deal with such crappy code. So I'm starting from near-scratch, just because I can, and because it will make my life easier when I have to do further upgrades in the future.

No comments as of yet.

Got something to say? Add your comment below.