So I finally got out on the trail again. Alex and I went to Wallace Springs to check it out. If you are looking for an easy hike with a lot of waterfalls this hike has you covered. Hopefully I will be putting up a review of this tomorrow or the next day!!!!

On a different note, I have almost completed the finaly database design, and in only a couple short weeks will be beginning work on the new site. From the looks of it I should have the bulk of it done by July and the new site will allow registered users to upload their own hikes, and pictures to create reviews like those which exist on the site. I am stoked to be doing this. It has been a long time in the coming. Just can't wait to see what sorts of hikes users submit. Should be able to handle several thousand of them.

Cheers,

John

I am almost done going to school for an MBA. Just found out last night the tuition can be deducted since it is key to my career. Thus I am due for a bit of money this year in my return. Will make getting a new server all that much more possible. My current configuration is good - buy noisy so going with what I have planned will among other things be more quiet, flexible, and easy to recover. Of course it is somewhat spendy, which is always the down side. Am debating whether I should wait for dual cores to come out in Q2 or go ahead with a purchase now with a dual proc. We'll see. Guess it is all predicated on the tax return.

In class today doing more of the empirical project management thing and marketing. Not really looking too forward to today - but it is the last meeting of these classes other than for finals. Tomorrow is going to be dedicated to moving the website in the am and then finals, finals, finals. Also will have to put together slidedeck for the Monday class the 'official' last class of the quarter. YEAH! Only downside is I will still have to work on finals for the balance of the week. Then I get a break week, and it begins again...for the last time.

So what this means is that in another 10 weeks or so I will have an MBA and will be able to return my attention in full to 1) Hiking, and 2) this website . I am really looking forward to that day let me tell you!!!! Just have to hang on a little longer.

This time the website is coming home to my place where it will be for the forseeable future. This should occur Sunday morning sometime so there will probably be a couple hours in the morning where the site isn't available.

The good news is I have a couple hikes other people have submitted that I want to put up on the site. Hopefully will get this done by next weekend. I think there are 4 or so.

I have added some functionality to the user reviews process to associate user reviews with user profiles and added will count submissions too so users can measure their contributions.

Have also made it so that submitting unique reviews by individuals will similiarly assoicate the review with the reviewer and count the reviews.

For more info seehttp://www.attrition.ws/forums/index.cfm?page=topic&topicID=12

Started feeling sick yesterday, and still am not feeling right. so no hike review from me this week.

Am intending to head off to Rainer tomorrow, up towards Indian bar and Cowlitz Park. The weather is looking somewhat ominous... I am really hoping things clear up.

Made a website change such that if you are logged in or otherwise use your username when submitting a hike review it will link to your user profile, blog etc.

I am thinking that I want to have the user hike reviews optionally referenced to user profiles if they exist. Hopefully I will be able to change this sometime in the next week! That and I need to find a bunch of avatars to start the gallery off with.

Some equipment is better than others, so I though I would share my thought about gear I have found to be valueable!

Wow that went remarkably well. I have changed the authentication over and made the forums available sweet. Hopefully this will meet the needs of many of you who have requested the addition of forums!

On track to extend the system. Hopefully, I will do this tomorrow night or on Friday depending on how far I get tomorrow night with the test system.

Have been making good headway on the test server getting the website moved over to using the cfbb framework for authentication Have gotten the nav bar authentication working, and registration will work, and post auth redirects back to the same page it originated from.

Still have to figure out the pagenation of the login icons etc - always a killer But overall things are coming along well. If things go well might even be ready to move the site over this weekend. Cross your fingers

I am not thinking I will be able to make a go of hiking this weekend since I have a bit of school work and finals to do, and of course the lovely 'regular life' type activities I have been avoiding for too long. Hopefully though if I put my shoulder to the grindstone this week I will be able to get in hikes for the next 4-6 weeks consecutivly and some weekends more than one.

That and get the forums integrated with the site so I can really get going....

Before I know it I will have to break out the snowshoes. Man this year is going by fast, and I am almost half way done with my MBA. When I am finished with this next June I am going to have a serious vacation! And maybe catch up on some sleep...

and thought to myself, hey why not add another forums so everyone can talk about this too? We'll presto chango.

Completed the Gem Lake hike review. The net chage in elevation is 2400 or so feet, but there is a considerable amount of gain/loss within that range...hence the 3700 total gain I have given it.