Jerry Odom's Blogger Blog

Who Says I Forgot About This Blog

2008-11-13T10:01:00.003-06:00

I recently got an email about not blogging here anymore. I've also drastically reduced my pace of posting on JerryOdom.com as well. It's tough with all the projects I've had going on. I picked up a couple of new clients in The V Shop and Smith Tank & Steel. I've also been extremely busy working on adding content and features to my Baton Rouge Restaurants category. Too many websites me thinks?

Additionally I've been working overtime at my day job developing service oriented applications using .NET 3.5. These new Microsoft products are really great and can get ahold of your imagination. Linq, remoting, WCF, 3rd party controls, Mobile development, web development and windows. I get to deal with about everything you can imagine.

Married life has been great. I just passed the 6 month mark and it's getting better every day. Look for even more changes with me in 2009.

Check out my Best of Baton Rouge website

2007-08-23T00:17:00.000-05:00

So I have more or less been ignoring this blog. Not many people find a blogger blog now days so I get far more exposure working with my personally owned domains such as jerryodom.com and now my Best of Baton Rouge project to build a content management system around what I want to find in Baton Rouge.

It's coming....well....slowly but it's starting to shape up and look really nice. I've got quite a few ideas for it beyond just listings that're going to really make it useful to me and hopefully others.

Haven't Posted on this blog in forever.

2007-06-12T20:01:00.000-05:00

I used to post here a bit. However as a matter of reading my family and friends tend to always read JerryOdom.com. It also does a hell of a lot better in the search engines so other people find it. This blog despite it's links doesn't see people. It feels like Google doesn't even respect it's own Blogger blogs.

Also check out Best of Baton Rouge which has been my recent programming project.

Kegging Instructions

2007-04-25T19:26:00.001-05:00

I ordered a kegging system and was sent no kegging instructions. Fortunately through the Internet things like this are always available.

Home Brewing Videos

2007-04-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

Finding information on doing just about anything is by far my favorite thing about the Internet. For instance friends and I are in the process of learning to brew our own beer. I found it a little late in the process but while searching for directions on using a hydrometer I found detailed home brewing videos.

Beer Brewing Begins

2007-04-10T21:22:00.000-05:00

Well I've been kicking it around for a while now but it's time to start brewing some beer. $520 spent at Austin Home Brew and we've got everything you'd want to brew and keg beer. So this Saturday my friends and I will start our home brewing project.

Busy Like A Savage

2007-04-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

I've been so damn busy with work and studying for taking the MCTS test. Have to back up my experience with some Microsoft certifications.

Happy birthday to me. I'll be spending my B-day watching UFC 69 this weekend. I'm really excited about this since I'm a really big UFC fan. Plus it saves me from driving all over the place for Easter.

Home Brewing Begins

Well some buddies and I checked out the Baton Rouge Beerfest over the weekend. I'd be researching getting into home brewing when this came about. My friends really enjoyed it and we all went in to buy $500 worth of home brewing supplies. Pretty cool since I was going to buy starting supplies then get everything else. Since we did it together we got everything we need.

Geaux LSU Tigers

2007-03-28T21:42:00.000-05:00

I've become a real fan for the LSU lady Tigers despide what happened with Pokie Chatman. They're just so good, so fast and so accurate. Back to the final 4 again for 2007! Big congrats and alot of pride over here. I can remember 2 years back being in Panama City Beach cheering for the girls while they were playing in the tourney.

Programming Microsoft .NET AND VBScript

I've been working with C# based ASP.NET pages and classical VBScript powered pages for the last month+ now. A very wild difference between the two in what you can do. The usability for the .NET 2.0 stuff seems almost unlimited. I can't imagine life before it even though I could accomplish anything quickly with a PERL/PHP cocktail.

.NET 2.0 is just so easy and stylish all at the same time. You set up a quick theme and establish useful pages with little or no real effort. I love it.

I wrote a quick C# Programming book review about one of my favorite books from Wrox so far.

Saint Patrick's Day

2007-03-17T20:36:00.000-05:00

Checked out the Baton Rouge St. Patty's day celebration today. Was an absolute blast and it seems to get better and better every year. It's a far better parade and party than anything else around here.(other than maybe LSU tailgating)

Back to projects

2007-03-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

The first part of 2007 has been swift to say the least. Job hunting madness has kept me so busy that it's over before I could blink. Things are cooling down and I'm getting used to my position at BCBS so it's back to the projects I've been neglecting.

I brought some tools I left at my dad's home and started evaluating what I have to order to work on my Mustang project. I'm going to have Thursday evenings as Mustang day until I have my Cowl and Floor panels replaced on my car. After that I can start going back together with the car. Exciting.

Brewing beer. Yes I said I'm going to start brewing beer for fun. There is a home brew store in Baton Rouge called Bootleggers and I'm going to go get some new toys.(like I don't have enough toys.)

I'm going to buy UFC 69 tickets when I get done with this post.

Hope everyone else is having a good start to 2007. Mine's been interesting but it's getting easier.

LSU Basketball = Going to hell

2007-03-07T21:42:00.000-06:00

Man has this been a disappointing season for the men? Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. An obvious lack of a real leader on this team and a ball handler. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. They just can't win!

Chatman resigns today. You want to talk about a stunned Tiger fan over here. I have never been a women's sports fan until Pokey showed up. Even under the previous coach I didn't but into it but this new womens team is so fresh on every level all the way up to the coach. No word on why she's out yet but I'm very sad that she's going away.

Could Microsoft Make Programming Any Easier?

2007-03-07T00:45:00.000-06:00

Now that I've basically got the hang of the syntax and basic programming methods used with Visual Studio I'm astonished at how easy it is to create rich interactive programs. It's almost like you can't fail or get hung up for longer than a few minutes.

All this coming off of my second week of working with the application on a real world solution involving alot of different entities. I couldn't imagine being able to put something together so fast and efficiently using Perl, PHP, Javascript, C or anything else I've touched in the last 3 years.

It's truly a great thing and I'm really excited about all I'll have an opportunity to learn for developing on the .NET platform.

What kind of developer do you want to be?

2007-02-25T21:57:00.000-06:00

Over the course of my career change here at the beginning of 2007 I had to face a lot of questions. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What type of developer would you say you are? What kind of developer do you want to be? Its was difficult to answer because I really wasn't that sure.

For the past few years I've been a web software developer. I programmed systems in a variety of languages specifically for websites and web business. When I got back into the job market everyone was looking for .NET developers. So I started learning everything I could and practicing developing using Visual Studio 2005. For a while I've thought that I wanted to be a .NET developer specifically. That looks like the future so that's what I'd answer. I want to be a .NET developer.

However over the course of the last few weeks of my search things started to change. I started to realize that total experience is necessary in the sort of development that interests me. Many companies post that they require people with particular skills in terms of development environments. They're only working in that one thing. They're a Microsoft shop or a Java shop specifically. Larger companies don't have the luxury of implementing technology from one vendor. They have to use dozens of different tools and make them all work together. I find this interesting and congruent with my previous experience.

So even though I've come from a small company for the past few years I've really been working in a way similar to that of corporate entities. I had to work constantly with new and old systems. A dozen different languages and dozens of tools. Whatever the job called for.

So what sort of developer do I want to be?

"Software Developer"

I'll program anything, any language, any environment at any time. I find new and old stuff interesting. I like solving problems. No more attempt to focus specifically on one set of tools. I'll be learning to learn in whatever tool is presented to me at the time.

Work Week 1

2007-02-25T08:01:00.000-06:00

Just finished week one of my first corporate job. It's far different from the smaller company experience in alot of ways but overall it's pretty nice. I'm looking forward to week two.

For me the big change was environment. I'm coming from a culture where we worked at the office, at a coffee shop or at your house depending on how you feel about it. Here we work in a huge office all together cubicle style so you're always hearing whats going on around you. It'll be interesting to see how it goes once I get rolling on a project.

Learning about BizTalk 2006

2007-02-16T21:51:00.000-06:00

I spent the day reading a book on essential BizTalk 2006. The tool is very cool and serves as a way to exchange information between very different services. It's got to be considered the duct tape of Enterprise Business for the time being. I only say "for the time being" that because it'll allow people to pull services together and then move them all under one modern system in a few years. If it ain't broke don't fix it will be a thing of the past. Our new saying will be if it ain't modern, upgrade it using BizTalk.

The graphical development tools offered through use of Visual Studio 2005 are just scary in what they can do. 5 years from now things are going to be down right science fiction in their efficiency. They provide adapters allowing you to connect and communicate data with every major type of system used in Enterprise. Visual orchestras, pipelines and xml mapping that allow you to easily communicate between systems. It's a great thing.

officially employed

2007-02-13T19:18:00.000-06:00

I'm very happy to say that my job search is officially over! Today Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Louisiana offered me a position with their IT department. I'm very happy with this position as I'll get to work with the newest enterprise technologies and a large organized team of professionals.

I've worked really hard to attain this position. I've researched heavily on what the best career path is and I believe I've landed in the right situation. Everyone wish me luck.

Working with SQL Server 2005

2007-02-08T16:21:00.000-06:00

So I've been writing an application using SQL Server 2005 for interaction with a C# based Windows application. I must say that databasing with this tool is very interesting. There are alot of great ways to do the same thing and using stored procedures has been alot easier than writing long PHP or Perl versions of the same.

System.Data makes creating connections to and interacting with databases a dream. The Server Explorer makes administrating to the database ridiculously easy in comparison to....say...command line or phpmyadmin. Ultra programmer friendly in my opinion.

The best thing is any questions I can't answer myself I can easily run down in Google, my books, help or a messageboard.

lol....interviews and the website

2007-02-01T21:54:00.000-06:00

I'm glad to say that all the developers I'm interviewing with do research using the Internet on their possible candidates. Possible employers and their staff get to read all about me before they even get to meet me.

That Rocks!

I love that because having to explain my personal interests is far more involved than explaining my work experience. It's pretty fun seeing the smile on everyone's faces knowing that they already know a little about Jerry and his mad little world.

8+ Hours on my couch

2007-01-30T22:09:00.000-06:00

Thats right everyone I stayed on my couch for nearly 8 hours today. I woke up, took a shower, sat on my couch and didn't move until 5 this evening. Why? Not because I was watching television, sick or lazy but because I was working my butt off to find some work.

It's pretty startling exactly how much mental work is involved in finding work. I'd dare say that working is actually easier than finding work. The scope of the questions I've had to answer, tests I've had to take and things I've had to learn has been broad. I've learned more in the last 30 days than I'd learned in the previous 6 months so its been rewarding but I hadn't counted on it being like this.

Big week of job hunting for me. I've got 5 total interviews this week and hopefully something will materialize into an opportunity. Definitely looking forward to getting in there and producing.

.NET Framework

2007-01-22T23:34:00.000-06:00

I've about gotten down all the essentials for using the .NET framework for developing applications. It took a little getting used to but once you get a good hold on what does what in Visual Studio then Intellisense and the debugger seem to do the reset for you. Whats more is there are so many developers out there that finding answers to questions is much simpler than PHP, Perl problems I used to face.

Today I did a good deal of PHP programming on one of my own web applications at Best of Baton Rouge. I'd started tinkering with the development of a databased system for this website late last year and have had to put it to the side while job hunting. I wanted a break from my .NET development so I picked it up today.(one of the benefits of being unemployed is you can program whatever the hell you want to) After a week or so of daily work in Visual Studio 2005 with that wonderful debugger and Intellisense it was suprisingly a pain in the butt. I imagine that anyone used to the wonderful tools available for .NET development would turn a little red working with PHP and a not so great CASE tool like Dreamweaver.

I'm curious about how fast I can put up a good ASP.NET site so this week I'll see about setting up a live ASP.NET site to compare development speeds and results.

Job Hunting - Trial By Fire

2007-01-17T22:17:00.000-06:00

I've recently had to start searching for a job and the skill everyone wants the most is the one I've had the least on the job experience with. Actually, I've had no on the job experience with .NET! I picked up a copy of Visual Studio 2005 in the last part of 2006 for the purpose of learning the new development tools that everyone is loving so much. Its great and coupled with the very awesome C# language I just had to give it a look. I never realized that in 2007 it would be the center of my world and the focus of all my attention.

.NET Mania

Since I posted my resume on Monster.com and Dice.com I've had about 15 contacts concerning .NET and 2 out of state contacts concerning my other history which was primarily *NIX based databasing coupled with custom PHP, PERL and Javascript applications. Nobody local is doing anything not .NET. I can't move so what do you do?

Learn .NET, C#.NET, ADO.NET and ASP.NET

I'm a professional and I know that if you need something you get it and learn it ASAP. Luckily I'd already familiarized myself with C# and using Visual Studio 2005. This was fairly easy because I had a background in Visual Studio 6, Visual Basic, C and Java from college. I can also read SQL like its plain english. However the use of the .NET framework and the subtleties of the environment are taking some getting used to. Unfortunately this is going to likely cost me some of my first opportunities since I'm still somewhat in the transition phase. No worries since I likely need the interview experience and I may get lucky with someone realizing what an adaptive guy I am.

Blessing in Disguise

This change of career occurance likely couldn't have come at a better time. All of these companies are making the transition to .NET using the newer versions of the language and they've got to scramble to train or hire people. I'm doing self training with 5 recent purchases from Amazon on .NET, ASP and C# and at least a month of daily rigorous study and practice in using the environment. I'm hoping to develop a website and an application as my tests to gauge my experience. There are a ton of communities out there and help is available. I just can't wait to get a chance to mix it up and contribute to a company!

Exciting times!

Busy Busy Busy on the Job Hunt

2007-01-13T15:51:00.000-06:00

I've never worked so hard and not been paid for it! My first part of 2007 has involved a constant job hunt for the beginning of my career in .NET software design. Opportunities are plentiful and its very exciting all around. I've really been getting a crash course on how a job hunt works since this is officially my first job hunting/interview experience. I stayed on with the company, InsiderLabs, that I worked as an Intern for and continued with them until we finished development in 2006 so I'm completely new to this.

Enterprise Level Training

After talking with a number of consultants and then recruiters for larger companies I definitely feel the large development teams of big companies are the way to go for me. I'll get real exposure to a dynamic team enviroment so I'm targeting those types of employers. Wish me luck everyone!

LSU Tigers

Are really struggling today against the Auburn Tigers in mens basketball. Man this Terry Martin kid is something else! Dameon Mason also hase absolutely no fear at all.

Geaux Gators

2007-01-09T01:10:00.000-06:00

As strange as it is for an LSU fan to be so happy about the Florida Gators winning a football game it was great tonight watching the Gators represent the SEC and completely destroying the Ohio State team. They dominated the game in every aspect and demonstrated to the country what it means to be an SEC champion team. This is the second time the SEC champion jumped from #3 to #2 and was questioned about it and its the second time the SEC team in question destroyed the #1 ranked team. Thats the power of the SEC baby!!

Congrats Gator nation. We'll see you in Death Valley next year!

As if we needed more fuel on the Alabama, Auburn, LSU rivalry

2007-01-03T12:16:00.000-06:00

Today Nick Saban becomes the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide! Wow what can you say to that? Nick has got to be loving the challenge of coaching against Les Miles and Tommy Tuberville. In the first year that a majority of LSU fans have forgotten about Nick Saban he comes back to the SEC. I'd bet Coach Miles is looking forward to the chance to throw a smooth beating on the guy that so many people around LSU wouldn't forget about.

Boise State vs. Oklahoma

2007-01-02T00:01:00.000-06:00

Wow what a football game. Up and down left and right these guys tore it up tonight. Just when you thought one team was done the other pulled something off. Great heart from Boise State getting back in it when they'd almost let it go. What guts with that play calling at the end of the game.

And then that Boise State player proposes at the end of the game to his girlfriend! A complete show and by far the most memorable bowl game this year so far.