Getting An Education

 

Java Enterprise Developer

That's what they call my new certificate program. Takes 6 courses. I'm taking 4 at once and challenging the other two. Plan to finish the whole thing up by end of December. Registering two days after registration closed was just the start of the fun...

I looked around for textbooks based on last years course information. I made several command decisions to purchase newer iterations of the recommended texts. As it turns out, the courses are using the newer texts, but the bookstore isn't stocking some of them (apparently they don't think one of the courses has a text....). I also got 4 texts in eBook form. Unfortunately, two of them I can't get onto my Android Phone & Tablet because they are in a Secure PDF format. I could get the Secure ePubs, but not these others and I've so far had 3 unsatisfying interactions with Kobo tech support to try to find a solution.

Then there is the matter of getting computers set up. My newest one is out on loan and has been for a time. It should come back next week. I'm using a little Linux box (Atom, 4 Gb RAM, 60 Gb solid state drive, 1 working USB port) as my computer. My main desktop is down with some sort of hardware issue, but whether the crashes are memory, motherboard/cpu, gpu, or hard disk is hard to know. Could even be the power supply. My netbook died last fall and was not repairable. My older laptop lost its network port last fall. My spare (older) development box is now old enough that loading modern web pages causes it to hang up. Somewhere, I need a couple of computers with appropriate software setups.

Being online courses, there is a whole new package of fancy eLearning stufff to absorb. They use a large enterprise web app called blackboard and this integrates forum, real-time chat, email, statis web presentation of lab/course materials, contact info, calendars, homework submission, etc. And then there's all the course material and textbooks for 4 courses.

By sometime next week, hopefully most of the environment needed to get on with things will be present.

I am really looking forward to these courses.

 
 

 

Dean Brody Concert

Catherine and I attended the Dean Brody Concert on 3 OCT 2013 at the Algonquin College Commons Theatre. The tickets were reasonable for a major star and I understand the place was sold out. I was taking Catherine out as a belated present for her Birthday (which happened a week or two before we moved to face-to-face dates, and thus I wasn't able to celebrate with her).

The concert opened with a warm-up act I didn't know, but did enjoy. That singer and his band weren't as good as Dean and his guys, but they have some talent.

Dean and his guys (the 'Brodeo' apparently) put on a good show. The guitarist is very talented and I thought the drummer was good too. Dean sings well and made a point to be interactive with the crowd. He also drew on his knowledge of the college life (noting most of the audience was College students, I think that was a good call) and related stories about his own time in College and his own experience coming from a small town.

Dean and the band did a variety of enjoyable tunes whose names I don't know yet. During his set, he did Footloose and I was instantly singing along and feeling a Kevin Bacon moment. He also sang a song mentioning Bob Marley and then broke into an actual Bob Marley song (which he rendered very well, I thought).

I was most impressed by the song "Brothers", a tribute to soldiers. He took the time to talk about his respect for members of the military who protected our country and had to be separated from their families for 6, 12, 18 months or more or who never came back. He handled this with class. He finished the regular set with "Canadian Girls" which, along with being a rocking sort of tune, pays respects to our female military members. I think Dean is a class act for doing this.

Catherine and I had a great time. There was probably some cuddling, nuzzling and kissing, but I won't tell. It was a good experience and I'd go to watch Dean again.

I have pictures and videos to post sometime soon when I have a chance. Will post on this blog some links.