I was recently asked what my favorite travel story is, and this is it. I didn't take my camera with me as I was told we'd be getting wet, but I wish I did. Oh well. Makes the memories that much more savored. I did just jump around the webernets and have featured several pictures to share what it was like.

For Mac, I find this to be AWESOME (seriously): Go into System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys, then change Caps Lock to Control, which is helpful because Control is hard to hit, then install KeyRemap4MackBook, then enable the Diamond Cursor, which makes it so:

I just watched 2 construction workers take a payload of glass panes from their site up to the edge of the jungle and toss pane after pane into the jungle. It was really sad to watch. No concern given to the beautiful area they live in, Railay Beach in the gorgeous area of Krabi, Thailand. Or maybe no better way to dispose of it and I just don't understand the way things are. However, I simply refuse to believe that it is OK. It was obviously know as wrong at some level to them since right after I walked up drop jawed and started to pull my camera out, they stopped and took a couple steps back. After I walked on I looked back to see them resume their environmental neglect. I came back about 10 minutes later and took some pictures of the glass landing zone and then another shot of them filling up another payload of glass to be thrown into the "pristine" jungle. Boo!

[caption id="attachment_224" align="aligncenter" width="582"] Glass thrown into the jungle.[/caption]

I love technology. Quite possibly the greatest tool humanity's created, it allows me to learn about my environment as I walk through it, creates the situation where work is something I do not someplace I go, allowed me to teach myself a profession I didn't graduate college for, lets me see my mothers face smile a half-world away, helps me not waste a library's worth of paper, and disperses ignorance through collective wisdom. It's all in how you use it. Use it well.

I went on a 6 night rafting trip with my Dad on the Main Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, an 80 miles stretch of river through one of the most remote areas left in the lower US. SO awesome. I've been rafting with my Dad since I was 4, and being able to camp while rafting is truly one of the most enjoyable experiences. Being able to throughly disconnect from the external world is so cleansing and appreciated. I had no idea what time it was most of the time and even lost track what day it was a time or two. This river is called the "River of No Return" as it pretty much is one-way trips from East Idaho to West Idaho only. It is also the 2nd deepest river gorge in the continent, even deeper than the Grand Canyon, although it doesn't feel like it as much since it's a series of false summits. It flows into the deepest river gorge afterwards, the Snake River cutting through Hell's Canyon.

Map

Photos

Video

The above video was filmed and put together by Brandon Iverson. At 2:33, the boat I'm running goes through a Class 4 Rapid that tosses all 3 of us out.

Have you ever had something big you've always wanted to do? Something that seems improbable but undeniably alluring? Something that you could look back upon much later in life and smile deeply knowing you didn't let chances pass you by?

1. Know how to use a computer - very well. Seriously, not just turning it on and launching a browser, then going to Facebook. Learn the tricks, tweak it, break it, fix it. Know your tools well.
2. Keyboard Shortcuts - Every chance you get to use a keyboard shortcut over a mouse click a kitten somewhere has it's life spared. Tell yourself that. What I do is use my mouse to go into the menu for what I want to do and look at the keyboard shortcut for that menu item, then I don't click on it, close the menu, then pull the command out of my short term memory and use it. This works wonders for memorizing these. It's almost impossible to read a big list and then have them stick. Work on learning 3 or so at a time then add more when you can use them without thinking.
3. Understand the file system - both on your machine and the server. Google 'absolute path' & 'relative path'. Better yet, just read the Wikipedia article on Paths. Also read up on FTP - It's how you'll move files from your computer to a server.
4. Learn how to learn - get good at researching what you're stuck on. Google obviously, but also go to physical bookstores and flip through books. Buy new ones that call to you often.
5. Be tapped into the flow of knowledge - read blogs, subscribe to RSS feeds, follow smart people on Twitter.
6. Be able to break down a design into HTML mentally - So you look at the design and ask yourself what everything means semantically: That menu is really a list of anchors, so you make an unordered list (<ul>) full of list items (<li>), that contain links (<a>). The big logo is really just a first level header (<h1>) that contains the companies name. And all the text? Just a bunch of paragraphs (<p>).
7. Be able to orally describe a design - Then you just write the CSS for it. So if you see that the sidebar is on the right and takes up about 20% of the width and its background color is red, then you'd write out the CSS for it like this: #sidebar { width: 20%; background-color: red; float: right; }
8. Did I mention that you're always learning? - That deserves two spots in my list. Seriously, become a sponge. Dedicate a day a week to just learning new stuff and you'll do amazing. Don't forget the most important part: implementing it. Use what you learn or it'll fade.
9. Learn to love to hate Internet Explorer - All that stuff you've been learning that works great in Firefox and Chrome looks like crap in IE. Seriously, it's like IE was drunk while you were telling it what your site should look like. I'd advise installing VM Ware Fusion and getting the latest IE and it's 2 previous versions installed. So yea, I'm currently troubleshooting what my sites look like on IE 7, 8, & 9. Get and use Firebug Lite to help & CSS 3 PIE. PS Also know that Firefox uses a different rendering engine than Chrome or Safari (which both use WebKit, so you only need to test on Chrome or Safari). Also, most good mobile browsers use WebKit (iPhone & Android), and it's usually the cutting edge, so that's my favorite.
10. Get a server of your own - You need a place to play that's setup correctly. You can do it locally on your own machine (check out MAMP for a really good start), but sometimes that can be tricky. It's nice to have an account on shared hosting. Check out Dreamhost. It's cheap, and there's lots of tools, and if you're going to be a web designer, you need to get your own site up and looking good. Make that your primary play area and personal project. Always work on it and make it better. Don't worry if it sucks at first (don't kid yourself: it will look like crap at first). Just get it out, get it going, and continuously revise and one day, you'll be on version 11, and you'll get linked to on someone's post titled "10 Awesome Site Designs You Need To See Now" ;)

I am a self-taught Front End Web Developer who writes a lot of CSS, HTML, & jQuery Javascript and pushes pixels in Photoshop from my laptop with flexible location and time restraints. I love my job. I want to share how to get started in this field. I feel that if you're reasonably tech-savvy and persistently driven, you can learn this. If you're not tech-savvy, then just double up on the persistence. First I'll cover the tools needed, next I'll go over the fundamentals, and then share my favorite resources.

I think Facebook Lists can be really helpful, especially when friend count gets higher. I'd recommend creating these lists: Inner Circle, Family, Outer Rim, & then for each era of your life: High School, College, Oregon Buddies, etc. I mainly use these to view updates from all those people collectively. If I haven't been checking FB often, the "Inner Circle" list is a great one for catching up on lots of the updates I don't want to miss. You can also use these lists to filter who sees your updates as well. Ever clicked the little lock next to the Share button in the update box? Hit Customize. It has a section to be able to specifically show it to a list or specifically hide it from a list. It says people, but the box will accept list names. So you can post an update and hide it from the entire Family list for example. Finally, the Privacy settings allows for quite a bit of control on who sees what on your profile. So, you can set it up to have a heavy filter on your profile info (sincerely personal stuff), for anybody on the Outer Rim list. This might sound harsh, but these are the people that would of just goten deleted before. People can also be on multiple lists too. Lots is possible.

When you go from face to face communication to phone calls, we lose the deep, unconscious story that body language tells, and gain the ability to discuss with another, irrelevant of distances between. When you go from verbal communication to written, the intonation and emphasis that the voice places upon the words chosen is lost, but the ability to respond at any time is gained. When you go from written communications sent to a single addressee to broad social networks, the ability to tailor your message to your specific audience, the context, is lost, and the ability to loosely address a vast array of friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, and others it gained, while opening up potential for discussion between them as well. All of these have specific advantages and disadvantages, and I believe you shouldn't get stuck using only one. Bounce between them as needed. Start a conversation on Facebook, finish it on a phone call, and follow up with a text message. Choose the form that best suites the situation. Just a few thoughts.