I thought I would take a moment and update all you fine folks some on what has been happening in the Kingdom on Applegrove.  It has been an exciting couple of weeks.

Baby Davis

This past Friday, March 18th Heather had her first ultrasound.  It was a moving experience to say the least.  Watching the shape of my child take form for the first time was surreal, Heather had eaten some yogurt before we went to the appointment so the little one was very active.

Baby Davis is still too wee to be able to pick up the heartbeat without the aid of a microphone, so the ultrasound tech switched on the mike in the wand so we could hear the baby's heartbeat; it was breathtaking.  The little room filled with the thunder of 178 bpm of pure Baby Davis.  I was on the verge of tears the entire time.

Duran Duran in Concert

If you were not a child of the 80's then move along, you won't care about this portion of the article.  The rest of you are with me though right?  Sweet.

Man did that show rock, and yes #wordpress people I just said Duran Duran rocks.  That was the second best live performance I have been to, only eclipsed by U2's Elevation Tour, and that my friends is saying something.  Simon Le Bon has a mind blowing voice, and he is as good now as he ever was in the 80's... possibly better.

I really dig the new album Astronaut, I believe it is the best they have ever put out.  My favorite part of the show had to be the Anime video that was playing during Careless Memories, it featured the mates in Duran Duran as Anime heros taking on monsters, aliens and gunmen; oh and EMI their former label.  At the climax of the video a giant Simon attacks and destroys the EMI building.  Good stuff.

The Great Job Switcharoo

So I have been with $employer for 2 years now, and they have been, for the most part, wonderful.  But as we all know there comes a point when we must move on to new things.  As of April 18th, 2005 I will be the Webmaster for Asbury College in Wilmore, KY.

It was a very long and arduous journey to making this decision, but I feel comfortable with it and look forward to the new challenges ahead.  Asbury has been without someone at the helm of the website exclusively for some time, so I know there is a mountain of work waiting for me.  Just the way I like it.

The site at Asbury is in need of some standards and accessability love, and I plan on giving it as much as it can handle in the coming months and years.  The PR department at Asbury is striving to "reinvent" the image of Asbury and to maximize the effectiveness of thier branding and advertising so it looks to be a wild ride ahead.

Oh and one more thing.

Look ma, I'm Steve Jobs!

Erm, anyway as promised here is the next of my gravatar plugins/hacks.

This baby is for bbPress that loveable little bulletin board that could from Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame.

With cjd_gravatar you are able to integrate an avatar system into bbPress in 5 minutes.  Very yummy.  You can see the results over on the Silly Support Forums, more specifically in this topic.  That gets me to .500 in regards to my gravatar plugin release schedule.  You can find implementation instructions for this bit o' code over in the University, under the heading CJD Gravatars.

Stay tuned for more plugins and a super special announcement in the near future.