Category: general

Growing up…

So, I guess you’re all wondering where I’ve been of late? I mentioned in my last post about 2007 being a good year – well, it’s certainly started off well! November 5th has grown up!

As I have now been officially welcomed, I’m very pleased to announce that I’m working as interface and application developer for Grow Collective, a Web design co-operative based in Bristol. Thanks for the warm welcome guys!

I’m stoked to be working with Jon, Paul and Charlie. Ever since first bumping into Jon on Accessify Forum, I’ve admired Grow’s work, and now it’s my work too! Mwah, ha, ha!

Working with Grow on projects over the last few months has kept me busy, but I’ve found it inspiring and it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been particularly good because I’ve been able to concentrate on working in areas I am good at and enjoy. It’s great to feel recognised for a skill and to be given the opportunity to develop those areas of my work.

Germination

So, it’s been busy lately – and it’s still busy. There’s a blog redesign I’ve contributed to preparing for launch just launched, a stationery company’s redesign in the final stages, and a shiny new Web application on the way – we’ve got lots of exciting things to get cracking on with! And, with some of the load of self-employment lifted by my colleagues at Grow, I’m going to have more time to spend here – aren’t you lucky?!

Several discussions with my new work-buddies have brought light to some interesting ideas and technical tidbits that others may find useful. So, armed with a few ideas floating around on the breeze and a pocketful of draft blog posts, expect to see a bit more natter and a bit less… silence.

Cats in York

Some of you already know about the little Cats in York website we set up, others won’t, so here’s a quick intro.

Mad Cat People

Well, I wouldn’t say I’m mad about cats, but we got fascinated by the cat statuettes around York during the summer when we spotted one of them on a walk. We had recently decided that we were going to be moving away from York, so we thought we’d try to find as many as we could. A few of the photos from our cat hunt ended up on Flickr, but we knew there were more of them.

We couldn’t find much about these critters online, and chatting to the York Reference Library, we found there was interest in them, but there was no collection of information on them. We decided to do a little research and build a website. End result: Cats in York.

Lime Light

We’ve had quite a bit of interest since the site launched mid-December. We’ve had several e-mails about the cats, a couple of mentions in the York Evening Press this month, and even a query about being featured on TV. We don’t actually know if we were on it or not, but if anyone saw the cats featured on Derek Acorah’s Ghost Towns live on LivingTV this weekend, please let me know!

Update, 2 Feb 2006

We found out this afternoon that Tom Adams, the architect responsible for many of the cat statuettes featured on the Cats in York website, passed away at the weekend.

Tom was a lovely man, and we were fortunate enough to have gotten to know him a little in recent months. He will be missed. Please do take a look at our tribute to Tom Adams over on the Cats in York website.

Elsewhere