Moving Forward

I would say that it’s been an eventful day. And I haven’t even left the den.

I upgraded the RAM on my computer, pushed forward on a few projects, and got invited to write a guest post on a friend’s blog. I also had some fun and interacted with some online friends.

Not a bad day at all. And it’s not even over yet.

I finally added RAM to my poor old HP Pavilion 522c, which I purchased nearly ten years ago. It’s been a real workhorse, and it’s served me well over the years, but it’s been getting a little under-responsive, especially now that I tend to have a gazillion tabs open in Google Chrome.

Well, I’ve got a full gigabyte of RAM now, double what I had before, and so far I’m pleased with the results. While my little Pavilion will never be a Formula-One racer, it seems to be breathing a little easier today.

DDR memory for a system of that vintage is a little hard to come by, but TigerDirect had it, and it only took a couple of days for them to UPS it to me. Not terribly expensive, either. All in all, a good experience technology-wise.

So, with my newly-upgraded system ready to roll, I began the daily ritual of checking e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and Protagonize. Somewhere in there, I discovered that my friend Ganga, who I know from the Protagonize site, is now following me on Twitter. So I followed him back.

Turns out Ganga is doing the 2009 Blogathon today and tweeting each time he adds a new post. His charity is the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, an organization in which he has a personal investment. I decided to send out a tweet suggesting people follow him and check out his blog (called Story Analytics).

Next thing you know, Ganga’s asking me if I’d like to do a guest post on his blog. I said yes. I wrote one. It’s here.

In amongst all that, I was also pushing ahead on some graphics for my new blog. Yes, you read that right. A new blog. I have purchased a domain name and web space and uploaded the WordPress software to it. I’m now in the process of tweaking the theme and designing graphics for it.

The new blog is going to be my “professional” blog. I’m going to keep this blog (i.e. the one you’re reading now) as my “personal” blog. I’ll announce my new URL when the site’s ready for action.

Let’s see, what else…?

Oh, yes. I haven’t forgotten about the documentary I’m going do do about my father and André Gagnon. I’m in the planning stages right now, and my current focus is mapping out the locations in Québec where I want to shoot footage. Beyond Verdun (a borough of Montréal), where my dad was born, and Kamouraska, where André Gagnon was born, I want to visit the places mentioned in the titles of some of Gagnon’s songs.

Enter Google Earth. One of my favorite programs. I’ve been adding place markers and doing a little fact-finding about some of these communities to get a better idea of the route I’ll need to take when actually shooting the footage.

The documentary progress merits a blog entry of its own. So stay tuned.

But that wasn’t my only encounter with Google Earth today. Back on the Protagonize site, in the discussions area, someone mentioned how nice it would be if there were a map showing the locations of the Protagonize members (the better to organize meet-ups, my dear).

Well, guess what? Old map geek over here gets it in his noggin to start a new discussion thread asking people to submit their coordinates for a Google Earth Protagonize map. And a few people responded fairly quickly.

Sigh. I do like to make work for myself, don’t I?

And that’s just some of the stuff I got up to today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Before I go, I’d like to send a shout out to Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre. They’re a great bunch of folks, they do good work, and I’m going to be helping them out with their website.

Yes, another project. Don’t worry. I need to be busy. It’s the only way I’m going to move ahead.

I’m actually going to leave the den now. Going out to meet friends who are visiting from out of town. A nice end to a productive and inspiring day.

For the sake of the Ecology Action Centre, I’m not going to tell you to leave the light on. Well, not the one plugged into the wall, anyway. But the one in your head? Yeah, leave that one on. You never know what it’s going go show you.

Good vibes, compadres. Keep movin’ forward.

–Eric