Three more days until my birthday! Want to take a look at my wish list? ;) Here’s what happened this week: Not Going to GUADEC 2010 After several weeks agonizing over how to afford a trip to attend GUADEC 2010, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that I won’t be able to make it. Due to my current financial situation[…] Emma’s Very Busy Week I’m the proud father of two voracious young readers!

I’m the proud father of two voracious young readers! From very early on I was able to instill into my daughters the pleasure of reading books. They also happen to be girly girls, so while most kids ask for toys and video games for their birthdays, mine ask for books and clothes/shoes! During third grade my oldest daughter happened to pick up “Emma’s very busy week" by Heather Dakota from her school’s library and just couldn’t put it down!

[caption id=“attachment_1161” align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“Sad Trombone”][/caption] After several weeks agonizing over how to afford a trip to attend GUADEC 2010, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that I won’t be able to make it. Due to my current financial situation and obligations as a father of two, it would be unrealistic to hop on a plane and go to this event right now for me. Unfortunately none of the organizations I approached were able to offer me any type of financial support, understandable due to today’s economy issues.

[caption id=“attachment_1094” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Django 1.2 E-Commerce”][/caption] Just received my complimentary copy of the book “Django 1.2 E-Commerce" from Packt Publishing! From the book’s overview page: Build all the components for an e-commerce store, from product catalog to shopping cart to checkout processor Build a high quality e-commerce site quickly and start making money All the examples in the book will run smoothly for all the versions of Django 1.

Sunday I was lucky enough to have the chance of attending a book reading (well, a passage actually) by Cory Doctorow! The event took place at Flyleaf Books right here in Chapel Hill, a charming independent book store that will most definitely see me and my kids more often from now on (plus, they’re right next to Foster’s Market and Flying Burrito)! Cory came across as a very humble, down to earth kind of guy and it didn’t take long for the crowed to feel right at home.

[caption id=“attachment_1080” align=“alignleft” width=“152” caption=“The Maze Runner by James Dashner”][/caption] This past March I started a new routine to my Sunday mornings: shortly after breakfast with the kids, I flip my laptop open and start reading the Books section of the NY Times online. I wanted to get the real deal, dead tree “version” of it for quite some time, but at USD$6 just for the Sunday paper I figured that reading it online would have to do it.

[caption id=“attachment_950” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging”][/caption] During this last weekend I finally managed to reserve a couple of hours of “me time” to finish reading my complimentary copy of the book “Django 1.1 Testing and Debuggingâ€? from Packt Publishing! Once again I felt completely absorbed by the style chosen for this Packt Publishing book, as it makes use of a complete application to reinforce all of the topics covered.