I create. I launch.

The Heresy of Racial Superiority — Confronting the Past, and Confronting the Truth

by John C. Bland II | Jun 24, 2015 | Personal

I am certain that I do not know all that this will require of us. I intend to keep those names on our buildings and to stand without apology with the founders and their affirmation of Baptist orthodoxy. But those names on our buildings and college and professorial chairs and endowed scholarships do not represent unmixed pride. They also represent the burden of history and the urgency of repentance. We the living cannot repent on behalf of those who are dead, but we can repent for the legacy that we would otherwise perpetuate and extend by silence.

I will not remove those names from the buildings, but I bear the burden of telling the whole story and acknowledging the totality of the legacy. I bear responsibility to set things right in so far as I have the opportunity to set them right. I am so thankful that the racist ideologies of the past would rightly horrify the faculty and students of the present. Are we yet horrified enough?

What an amazingly well-written article. It is worth your time and I truly wish we could get the message to everyone in this country who believes racism is dead or that we should ignore our history; especially those in control of our educational system providing only half-truths on our historical figures.

Source: The Heresy of Racial Superiority — Confronting the Past, and Confronting the Truth

Leaving Limelight…Back to Katapult

by John C. Bland II | May 18, 2008 | Personal

A lot of folks have been asking for the specifics so I figured tonight is as good as any to explain my move back to “Katapult”:https://www.katapultmedia.com. Keep reading for the big picture.

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Stephen Asbill: Coding in Heaven

by John C. Bland II | Apr 7, 2008 | Personal

I try to keep personal things off this blog but it is industry related and it’s my blog so I say what I want! 🙂

I can only pray Steve had everything together and is in Heaven right now coding on Windows Vista Angel edition. Steve died in a car wreck a couple weeks ago and it hit me pretty hard. He was roughly my age and in the same industry.

Have you ever met someone you feel could get an eskimo to buy ice? Steve was that kind of person. He could get the ocean to buy a drought protection insurance policy or a squirrel to sign a joint venture contract with Planters. He was definitely always on the move, mentally, and always had his entrepreneurial hat on.

Steve was also the first actual client of “Katapult”:https://www.katapultmedia.com when we made the official change from JDev, Inc. He kept me WAY BUSIER than I banked on being but we were doing some cool things so I didn’t mind. He introduced me to “Four Peaks”:https://www.fourpeaks.com, which has some good food and is where he ALWAYS wanted to meet for lunch. 🙂 Good times.

Steve, you will be missed. Visit me in a dream and let me know how that Vista Angel edition is working for you.

RIP

1st Day @ Limelight

by John C. Bland II | Oct 18, 2007 | Personal

First, I forgot my laptop at home. Ah well…they had one ready for me. 🙂 It felt weird being without my laptop…like really weird but when they slapped a fresh Dell Inspiron 9400 on my desk……..well……..that all went away. 😀 I’ll be getting a desktop with some sweet monitors too (I’ll take some pics of the office here soon…it is kinda cool).

Anyways…enough of the gadgetry. Everyone, that I met, is super cool at Limelight (LLNW). I mean they went out their way to help me make sure everything was setup (albeit a bit after I made it in) and numerous people went out there way to ensure I had access to everything I needed.

I’m in the UI Dev’ “department” (a corner of the dev’ office area) with Jake and Dave. They are cooler than a fan, both very quiet though. I’m used to people talking to me all day (namely Tia, my wife, and Lil’ John) or at least some form of chatter. 😉 Although I could hear people talking it was usually muffled in some way.

LLNW has a lot of stuff going on. I had my first assignments (yes, plural) given to me today and I ALLLLLLMOST completed one today between having no desk and using the previous developers laptop to setting up on a desk to learning the old code to porting everything from the old laptop to my new one to having to upload some test files my manager needed to see (nothing I coded; they just needed it online to test)….{phewww, taking a breath}….I dang near made it. 🙂 There was a list of 12 updates to a simple app and I have all but…mmmm…4 or so. {snaps fingers} I wanted to have a huge triumph today but coming close was good enough, at least they seemed happy.

So, those’re all of the highlights. What about the lowlights?

My only gripe is having to deal with non-classed Actionscript. The project is Flash 8/AS2 but all of the code is implemented in includes. “FusionCharts”:https://www.fusioncharts.com/ wasn’t difficult to use or anything but I had to mod some of their code to implement event dispatching (they use asfunction; ewww). It took everything in me not to rewrite the entire app as a class-based app but I refrained. This is just a “demo” anyway so I’ll probably end up rewriting it.

Yep…that’s all of my lowlights. Well, having “endless” amounts of snacks readily available is kinda a bad thing. 🙂 (uh oh waist line) lol

LLNW is doing some sweet stuff. I don’t even know everything that’s going on (not even close to it) but just a few mini-discussions with some folks opened my eyes a bit to the “massiveness” of their infrastructure, goals, and responsibilities.

Oh…1 more thing…THEIR SERVER ROOM IS UBER-GEEKY! I smiled all the way through it. LMBO. I don’t know why but I love server rooms and their setup is super sweet. It even includes an air-sucker-outer (so in case there is a fire, suck the oxygen out…fire has no choice but to go out). 🙂 NICE! Love it!

This is going to be fun!!!!!

Well, it is 12:30 and I gotta get some sleep. I can’t stay up late like I used too. 🙂 Tomorrow is a day of multiple meetings as well as some doc signing. Hopefully I get to code a bit between all of that.

BTW, I won’t blog about specific projects I’m working on unless they are public and I have approval. It is just a formality and cool by me. 😉