Looking Backward - 2007 in Review

Yup, another year’s over. I figured before I got all carried away about the next year, I’d take a moment to reflect upon the last twelve months and share some of my favourite things with you.

• My Music Column @ blogTO
• Best Site Updates
• Top Five Blog Entries

My Music Column @ blogTO

As my good friend Bob Menard was so apt to point out, writing about music is probably the most natural possible extension of my blogging - all I have to do is take all the strong opinions I have about music that are constantly spinning around my head and jot them down. Voila, instant music column. I was lucky enough this year to get a gig with blogTO.com, a site dedicated to all things Toronto (the city I’ve called home for the last fourteen years). Even though I’ve only been working with them for a month now, I’ve already had a chance to talk to Richard Underhill of the Shuffle Demons, and I had the opportunity to write about the recent passing of jazz legend Oscar Peterson.

I really love this new job. I recently told one of my freelance web clients, who has paid a considerable amount of my mortgage this year, that if I win the lottery, writing my music column will be the only job I won’t quit (by the way, thanks for having a sense of humour, Dave).

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Best Site Updates

I’ve done a number of things to fix up the site since launching in October. I think my favourite things, however, are the randomization scripts I worked in to load random banner images and sidebar quotations. I’ve also loaded up a fair few out-of-the-box WordPress plugin solutions to help optimize the site, but it’s the little things I’ve been able to squeeze into the WP-framework that I’m most proud of. Curious how you can get in on the action? Look up PHP’s mt_rand() function.

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Top Five Blog Entries

I started blogging at em411.com, but eventually setup this site when it quickly became apparent that couldn’t stay within the confines of electronic music when it came to what I wanted to pontificate upon. I’ve recently rolled my fave em411 blogs into this site. Here’s a brief look back at some of my stuff from the last year.

• What’s in my Soundhole Today/ Updating my Soundhole: My son has a cute yet annoying habit of shoving his toys into my acoustic and classical guitars. This entry examines some of the things he’s offered up to the guitar gods.
• Sorry, Dad: Staying on the fatherhood tangent, this short entry deals with my son’s other cute yet annoying habit of head-butting my more sensitive regions.
• Trust Your Mechanic: OK, I don’t make a big deal out of my day job, but I did use this entry to draw parallels between automotive repair and search engine optimization. Long story short - spend money, save time, maximize results.
• The Pagan Roots of Christmas/ The Pagan Roots of Christ: If this series from early December helps just one atheist/agnostic embrace Christmas as a secular celebration in the guilt-free manner that I do, then my work here is done.
• The Smallest House in Toronto?: There is definitely a finite amount of building space in this town, but I had no idea how bad the problem really was until I saw this house built on what used to be a single-car driveway.

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