news

My news

(20 Oct 2007) Time at my current job is drawing to a close. It's been an enjoyable learning experience and it seems like I've been a good help to them, but its time to move on. The company is going through some changes, a few for the better, but they all involve around an hour and a half of driving for me most weekdays. By 2008, I hope to be working full-time on a lifelong dream: writing and selling software for people to enjoy. I'm pretty eager, although every few days I wonder if I know what I'm getting myself into. I probably don't, but there's only one way to find out and the time is ripe for my favorite photo organization idea. With the release of OS X Leopard next week and the promised portable multi-touch SDK next year, there's plenty of new things to be excited about on that front.
    But its been a bittersweet week, since it also brought bad news on a more significant front. They found cancer growing all inside of Grandpa Hooyer, and it looks like his time on earth is drawing to a close. It's hard for Hannah to be so far away from her grampa and family, and it's sad to realize that I didn't have much time at all to get to know him. We are eventually headed towards a weary reunion, around him in Sioux Center. Then we will miss him more, until that joyous reunion, around the throne in the promised All Things New.

(17 Aug 2006) New news? We've been busy this summer, visiting four states in the Midwest, two trips to Mt. Rainier and having new teachers, grandparents and soon cousins over. This afternoon we plan to go across the mountains for at least one more hike/camping trip. It seems like we've been gone a lot this summer, but it was worth it.
    Hannah is getting ready for another year of teaching. My work is sort of same-ole-same-ole, although it sounds like the company I work for is hoping to get into some new work that doesn't interest me much. All the more reason to a) get some ritalin in my bloodstream and b) get my own company started. It'd be great to get back into work that's closer to the user in the next few months. But in the next few minutes, I should get back to the currently scheduled stuff. ttfn!

(16 Jan 2006) Work and spare time are starting to fall back into their interplay, and I'm continuing to try form good habits that keep me from wasting too much time or using extra time on things that don't matter in the long run. As an update to the previous news item, the iPhone won't be out until June and by then I will have most likely completely decided that I'd rather pay to keep the phone away, than pay for a phone in order to pay more for a phone contract. It's interface is definitely cool, but Hannah would probably not be able to create as fine of art on it as she has with the graphics tablet that arrived last Friday.
    This past weekend (and week) was great fun, as we hosted a college friend for a few nights and visited with several other friends at our and their houses. By now, my watch has a scribbly tracklog that pretty much sums up all the places I go around our area. Hopefully once it's warmer and livelier outside we will resume our adventures down unknown roads. Hopefully not with an unknown vehicle.....I have not seen my truck (except once through the shop window) since it sprung a leak two Thursdays ago and was taken to the repair garage. If they cannot procure the right part for the right price, we may start looking for a less rusty vehicle. I would miss my old truck. Maybe I can build a hovercraft out of what's left!

(4 Jan 2006) Christmas has come and the season's festivities are gone. It was my first "fly-in" Christmas, and although we were delayed two and a half days due to Denver blizzards, we still had time to catch up a little with the immediate families and some extended as well. One thing I missed, somewhat to my surprise, was the reminder of the plain and basic truths and reasons for Christ's coming. Going into the season, I was worried that hearing the same story as the past two decades would make it feel like old news. Instead I sat through a message that tried hard to be new and smart and creative, and found no joy. May I hear the same good news when I have 95 years as when I weighed ninety-five pounds!
    Being among family again was one of the best "presence" I got. Games were played, discs were thrown into baskets, balls were thrown into bowling pins, pictures were taken, walks were walked, talks were....talked, movies were watched, and happenings were related. Of the other sort of presents, I've so far spent the most time with a "best-of" Doc Watson album featuring clocks and muskrats and inebriated rodents, and a Garmin watch featuring accurate measurements of ALL FOUR DIMENSIONS! strapped to my very own wrist. I'm also hoping to get a piece of computer hardware with some cash gifts, probably a graphics tablet unless something more useful comes up next Monday at the Macworld Expo. But tonight, Grieg is playing on our excellent-sounding stereo system, the furnace is warming the opposite corner of the living room, Hannah is done with school preparation and this website updating is over and out.

(20 Dec 2006) Busy has helped me to get better work done during the day, and seems to tire me out just enough that I don't tackle too many projects in the evenings. It's been nice to relax a little more, and get some book reading done instead of wallowing in tech news. Now I'm looking forward to some extended time off with Hannah and the extended families. We're hoping to get to see 3 of the four sets of grandparents, as well our parents, sisters and many uncles and aunts. Well, I should start packing and backing up. Don't miss our Christmas letter to you.

(29 Oct 2006) No huge major news, although Hannah should be posting about how well her first concert went this week. Afterwards, we got to eat out with some other teachers as an after-concert tradition. I had my first whole glass of wine, which was good but I still don't see the the attraction over, say, fresh apple cider or mint tea. It was a fun evening though, and I got to get to know some of Hannah's fellow teachers better. The next night, Hannah and I went to a fun play (Lost in Yonkers) at the local public high school. It was pretty well done for a high school play, and most of the pictures I took turned out reasonably well.
    As far as pictures go, I actually posted a second Tabblo with more pictures from the new telephoto lens. We've gone out several times to get pictures this last week, and usually got just a few before night fell. It's getting dark so early at night, and we just lost another hour, I suppose we'll have to start taking morning outings instead. Well, we should get some soup in our tummies and head to church.

(16 Oct 2006) Inspired by my wife's incessant sharing of news, pictures and stories, you will be amazed, if not even perplexed, to find that I have broken an apparent two months of silence to bring you this update. On the one hand, it feels like an update is hardly necessary, as the details of my daily work tend to gloss eyes over and the adventures of our life together have been reasonably chronicled already. But Hannah has left some things for me to recount, from the elation of flying with a representative of each of the Vander Wilt generations to the angst of helplessly watching an unnamed shipper do all within their power to make sure "3 Day Select" takes every moment of three *business* days. This, despite the fact that my package has been within driving distance for over four evenings. Meanwhile, I have been spending my time enjoying my wife's company, trying to make progress on the living room "piles", listening to clever new music from BT and MuteMath, listening to lovely old music played by my wife, socializing with church and teacher friends.....the list goes on, but actually it just got abruptly squelched.
    Of course, no news post would be complete without a list of current intentions. I am incredibly behind in putting up new pictures. I'd like to post some older ones first, so they don't feel dustbinned. The current version of iPhoto handles pictures closer to the way I like, and I'm hoping to get all my pictures thumbnailed in it's glassy display. That reminds me of another intention, which is to have a small piece of the picture puzzle available for download within a few weeks. I've got a rapidly growing list of other things to create, and my new job is teaching me that the best way to get things done is to do them.
    In closing, a plea for help from the cactus pear that is sitting on our shelf: If the internet does not provide a suitable cooking method for our friend within 24 hours, it shall become nourishment for next year's garden. Any suggestions? E-mail may be vintage, but it gets delivered quicker than any comment you might try posting on this page.

(12 Aug 2006) For those who haven't been following my wife's website, go check it out as it has a much better record of the past month and a half, with links to many pictures. But there's a few things she's missed. We've found a church congregation that we both feel could become our church home. We're also getting settled into our house, getting furniture arranged, pictures put up, and random cooking, cleaning and recreation supplies purchased. We've been enjoying our new matching Trek bikes, which were a graduation gift from my parents well-delayed until we moved out here. Our movie collection has quadrupled. I went to buy Hannah a movie as a birthday gift, but ended up getting six, partly due to a video rental store closing sale. Since we only had two to begin with...
    Our book collection has grown dramatically, too, completing the matched bookshelves that were a graduation gift from Hannah's parents. Since we've moved in, ten books have arrived in the mail. I'm all the way to quite giddy about half of them. One is an older, yet still poignant look at copyright history that Hannah graciously let me splurge on. She also gave me a set of four beautiful Edward Tufte volumes...which are sort of The Way Things Work of data presentation. The other five were programming and mapping books for my new job,
    ...which is yet another blessing added on top of so many others. (The books and movies are easy to talk about, but there's been a lot of other little blessings too.) I started work two weeks ago, and am liking it already. The last two weeks I've been doing business as Extinguished Scholar Services, doing work for a National Weather Service contractor. My first project involves cutting out river flooding basemaps and getting the computer to draw labels on them. The programming is interesting, and will still take more practice. I think the area I will learn most in is not so much the computer, but in pacing myself to meet deadlines. Although I find it easy to focus on programming, alot of the work will end up being done from home and I'll have to be careful not to get hung up on any one small piece for too long. Overall, I'm "stoked" for the opportunity to work at a job that seems to fit me pretty well and provides opportunity to grow in things like business and time management. For all these blessings even on earth, praise the Lord!

(9 July 2006) Well, the deed is done and the honeymoon is over - though not metaphorically speaking. [editors note: this was to be the beginning of news about joyful times spent with family and friends. Said times precluded any elaboration on the same.]

(21 June 2006) Mowing, planning, researching, writing, coding, waiting. That's been the bulk of my days lately. I've been trying to get my parts of things ready for the wedding, which is no huge burden but has taken a fair amount of time. All sorts of research needs to be done into insurance, utilities, jobs and the like for when we move up to Washington. Writing means mostly trying not to read deep thoughts into the feely Cross Cultural questions that form the last hurdle between me and my deeplomah! Moving this site is the coding, which is pretty light on programming and pretty heavy on administration. The final list item in need of elucidation: waiting for going back to Iowa and waiting for the wedding. Of course, plenty to do in the meantime. Hasta hasta hasta...

(11 June 2006) Nineteen days, nineteen hours and less than nineteen minutes until the big day! Since I "graduated" on May 5 there have been plenty of doings. Here's the basic outline of what I remember doing between then and now: finished packing out of the school apartment, stopped by grandparents the weekend of Pella's Tulip Time, came home and scanned negatives for about a week, hung out with one old friend for an evening, went back to NW Iowa to take a Graphic Design class and downloaded basemaps for everywhere I think I've taken or might take pictures soon, hung out with Hannah more, drove back to IL, went to my sister's graduation, enjoyed my church's grad potluck, and then started working my mowing/landscape job as well as hanging out with more friends. I still have one more thing to finish up on my degree, which involves answering many questions in the direction of how cross-cultural experiences make me feel.
    There is currently no job in my sights right now. (I did find some work with the guy I worked for during high school for these three weeks.) Someone with more experience landed the full-time position I was pretty keen on getting, so now I am even more motivated to continue my job hunt. This morning, I was kindly offered the use of a semi on a farmyard where I could learn CDL material. I am convinced that God has faithfully protected the world from my driving so far, but I am not sure if I trust Him enough to throttle up a miniature freight train.

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Site news

(16 Jan 2007) Announcing a side project hosted on this site! A glob of nerdishness is a joint effort between myself and Hjon, a friend since college. The plan is for us to keep posting links that are interesting to us, which will theoretically be interesting to others. Feel free to chime in and let us know what you like!

(4 Jan 2007) I trashed all the old WordPress "glob" stuff. Sorry if that broke a feed you were using, but I didn't have a spam filter running, my browser hung trying to mark 671 junk comments as spam via the admin interface, and I was generally sick of the whole old mess. Stay tuned for a potential reinstall of WordPress tuned to a different purpose.

(19 Dec 2006) At last an update! I've done a rough conversion of my old glob over at thoughts. The old comments don't show up yet, and sorry about the mojibake — I'm hoping this is a work in progress and not a final draft. (Though I'm thinking the comment system per se won't come back, since I don't post nearly enough to attract anything but spam.) Thanks for visiting!

(21 June 2006) Woah! This is different, eh? The ugly templatey glob thing has been banished to "thoughts" and will hopefully get blended better with the rest in the future. If you had never visited "natevw's website" before...this is it. Enjoy!

(21 June 2006) Moving site to new domain. Made homepage more useful with menu. Added "thoughts" category and used some rewrite rules to support old feed links. Adjusted a few CSS alignments. Mademy own 404 page.

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