Hello world, it seems an eternity since I last found myself sat at my computer writing on my blog… I set up this blog as a means for me to keep people up to date about what’s going on in my life, simply because I am absolutely horrid at keeping in touch with everyone.

But yet again I seem to have managed to find another way to fail to keep you all in the loop as to what is going on, the last post on this blog was back in 2008, and that really hits home on how far I have kept from my original intentions with this blog and my website.

So whilst I can’t cover everything I’ve been up to since 2008, I am stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight to fill you in on some key elements that have happened since my last post. So here goes nothing…

A day to cherish…

In my last blog post back in 2008, I spoke of the preparations for the big day, the day my other half lost her sanity enough to agree to put up with me for the distance.

The day was a great success, and it is a weekend that I will hold dear in my heart for a long time to come, it’s been over a year now, and the memories still hold strong for all  the right reasons…

Even though the day is now past, I can’t not thank those involved in organising the weekend enough and I will forever be thankful for the time and effort that was put into making the day as special as it could be for Rachel and I, you know who you are and I just want to iterate the gratitude that Rachel and I feel for what will always be a very important day in our lives.

In addition, thanks has to go out to both our parents and family, thank you for supporting us both throughout our lives and being there to usher us into the next stage of our lives, whether you had a big role on the day or were there to share in the memory, you all played a huge part in making the day as special as it was.

A big thank you has go out to our friends who managed to be there for the occasion, I know some of you went to great lengths to ensure you could make it and being there to share the moment with us meant a lot to both Rachel and I.

To our friends and family who couldn’t make it, because of financial restraint either on our part or yours, just know you were never forgotten, and amongst everything you have played a major part in the people Rachel and I are today, and that alone deserves all the thanks we can give.

I have started to upload the collection of pictures I have from the day to my gallery, I will attempt to over the next few weeks complete that collection, but for now, click the image of Rachel and I to be taken through to pictures of the big day.

Ruby has a friend…

In my last post, I introduced you all to Ruby, our Blenheim King Charles Cavalier puppy… Well needless to say, Ruby has grown and about a year after she entered our home, another member of the family joined.

Milo, another Blenheim King Charles Cavalier became part of the family in mid 2009, and has ever since been inseparable from Ruby. They have two very distinct personalities representative of a scene from “Lady and the Tramp”, with Ruby very much being the “prim and proper” side of the story

A couple of months ago an adorable and loving third King Charles Cavalier puppy (tri-color this time) called Daisy also joined the family… However, unfortunately Rachel and I had to make the difficult decision to find her another loving home, because the difficultly of handling three dogs when out on a walk made it harder for Rachel to be able to take them out on her own.

We felt it wasn’t fair to any of the dogs , and as such we found daisy a loving family who give Daisy the love, affection and outdoor time she truly deserved. So as difficult as it was to see her leave, we are confident that she’s being well looked after and cared for, but as a momento of her time within our household, here is a picture:

Ruby and Milo are now back to their tricks as  “Lady and the Tramp”, and are a cherished part of the family, but Daisy will always have a fond place in our memories.

A new challenge

Since my last post on this blog, I have ventured onto a new challenge, moving on from my previous job role as part of a development team at an agency in Manchester to be a senior developer at a fast growing and exciting agency based in Cheshire.

It’s always a difficult choice when it comes to deciding to move on from a company who in a lot of ways opened the doors to my career path as a web developer. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the team and learnt a lot from my time there, valuable experiences that have built the foundations to which future knowledge and skills can be built upon, which I will always be thankful for.

However, there comes a point where to further better yourself, you need to take on a new challenge that will present you with new experiences to build from. Being at the forefront of digital development for a fast growing young company is a prime example of such exciting new challenges and responsibilities which were just too difficult to turn down.

A year on, and the experience my new role has brought me has been hugely apparent, it’s been exciting and has kept me very busy and on my toes, and I look forward to the continued challenges that the future may bring and the continued development of my knowledge and skill set.

The silence that overshadowed the blog…

So, 2008 was the year when the lights went out on the blog, silence ensued, and hopefully what’s been written so far may have explained some of it.

However, the reality is I have not been keeping totally away from the blog and my website, I have been working on and off for the past few years on certain enhancements and features, that due to time constraints just never saw the light of day.

Mid 2009 I actually started development of a brand new template for the blog, designed and developed from scratch it was intended to bring back to life what was a very dated theme that I had previously created. However, the theme you are looking at right now (as you may have guessed) is not it… So what happened?

Well, basically I was holding off writing a new blog entry until the new theme was complete… The only problem was, that never happened, a combination of life getting in the way and versions of WordPress being released with new theme features, it never felt like it was ready for the prime time…

About a week ago I then looked back at the design and realised I no longer liked what I was seeing, so I made the decision to drop the development of the theme and utilise a third party theme (as the blog still definitely needed a face lift!), that way I could concentrate on doing what a blog is primarily for… writing posts, and let the third party developer concentrate on updating the theme and it’s functionality to go in line with the new features of WordPress.

So here we are, a new theme is in place thanks to the brilliant work by mono-lab and I am finally updating my blog… I would say that’s job done! But just for the benefit of not totally wasting all the hours I put into the theme I was developing, I am posting a screen shot of what the theme would have looked like:

The theme is based on the idea that the blog was intended to be a pinboard of my thoughts, with a lit up pin board being the final effect. Throughout the theme all images with a specific class were being dynamically replaced to be styled as though it was in a Polaroid without the user requiring to add any custom HTML when editing their post, the image is then being dynamically cropped to fit the required area and cached for re-use later.

The theme still had work that needed to be done on it and as explained, I got to a point where I felt it no longer reflected my design tastes, so it is now being stored in the archive to potentially be cannibalise for use in a future design… Who knows.

Until next time…

So that’s it really, I’ve tried to summarise everything in a single post, obviously I could have gone on for ages about everything but I didn’t want to bore you half to death, and that’s even if anyone still checks the blog… So as I step out from the shadows and back into the blog spotlight,  I welcome your comments, and until next time, take care.