I know it seems like I set up and abandoned the blog. This is not the case. I've just returned from our annual December vacation in our new timeshare at St. Kitts. It was nothing short of incredible. It was also sorely needed.
I have to admit that while I did very little with company work, I did take the opportunity of down time to catch up on some reading and research. (I mean, seriously, isn't that what everyone does on vacation?!?)
Of course, I had the perfect computer desk with a view, as seen below from one of the three balconies at our place.
Although I consider myself a strong .NET and especially ASP.NET developer, I have to admit my CSS design skills are not where I would like them to be. So, I did some light reading and exercises from a couple of books based on recommendations from my friend, Spike Xavier, who I consider to be a great web designer. The two books he recommended (which after reading, I, too, recommend) are Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages by Jacob J. Sanford and Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design, 2nd Edition by Richard York.
Admittedly, most of this was refresher, but I feel more confident when attempting to do more CSS based design in ASP.NET 2.0 and, therefore, SharePoint 2007.
Other than spending some time and becoming more comfortable with Visual Studio 2008 RTM, I also caught up on some Microsoft Silverlight development information. My good friend, Michael Palermo IV, a Microsoft Regional Director (RD) and Microsoft MVP, has done quite a few videos that are highlighted on the Silverlight site under Learn > Videos section. I got a jumpstart on the technology thanks to him.
Now, if you think that all I did was read and stay on the computer, you are incorrect. I spent the majority of my time with my wife and son in the sun and water. (In fact, most of the day reading was done during nap time, since we didn't have a dedicated nanny on this trip.) I also did a couple of dives to get my SCUBA fix in. Unfortunately, my wife had baby duty and couldn't dive with me, which I regret.
All in all, it was a great vacation and I came back recharged and ready to go.
