therouxDown

It’s 2010! And my blog has fallen by the wayside.

A lot has happened in my life.

In May, I accepted a new position as a front-end web developer for a public affairs firm in D.C. and the past seven months have been a blast.

I would say the biggest surprise is how much I like working with an in-house graphic design team. It’s great having input in the design process—much more fun than receiving a 10 zipped-up PSDs ready to be sliced without any further instruction.

I’ve also continued to pursue my interest in SEO, and thanks to our senior web developer, I’ve learned a lot of JQuery, too.

However, the commute from Reston to D.C. 5 days a week got to be a real drag. So, at the end of October, I moved to the Court House neighborhood in Arlington.

It’s awesome. As much as I love my car, words cannot how much I like not needing it on a daily basis.

Now that I’ve had two months to settle in, I think I can safely say that 2010 is going to be the best yet.

So, in my quest to become a more well-rounded web denizen, I decided I wanted to learn Flash.

Usually I’m a self-starter type, but for whatever reason, I just couldn’t/didn’t get around to teaching myself the basics.

The user interface of Adobe Flash looks very similar to the UI elements I’m used to in Photoshop, but they work in subtly different ways. It drives me crazy. And all my well-practiced Photoshop keyboard shortcuts lead to general disarray when used out of force of habit in Flash.

So rather than continue ranting about how Flash is utterly pointless and wretched for SEO and usability (defense mechanism much?), I decided to enroll in a local Introduction to Flash night class.

Behind the link, you’ll see the movie I made during class. Be prepared for hilarity.

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… everyone had to start somewhere, right?

Here’s to new beginnings.