I don’t know how I missed this, but Zed Shaw rocks. For those of you not keeping up with the Ruby on Rails community (ie: me) he is (was) the guy who wrote mongrel the popular rails server among other ruby/rails contributions. Thank god he finally woke up and realized what a gong show the Rails “community” really is.

Anyway print the rant and read it on the shitter.

Rails sucks. Ruby sucks. Zed Shaw gets an A+ in my book.

Jeremy and I have gone through some interesting and trying times. When these times come up I am always very negative and try to imagine all the worst possible outcomes. Without fail, Jeremy is optimistic and has repeated over and over again to me “Adversity brings opportunity.” I’ll never forget the first time he told me that. He was right in a big, big way. There have been several other times, and he has been right every time.

I have a friend going through some trying times and that mantra just keeps coming back to me. Adversity forces you to step back and look at things from a different angle. You never know what could happen when you’re forced to make a change.

Don’t fight it, embrace it. You never know.

Seth Godin made a post today asking people to share their copy of The Dip. I can’t think of anyone locally to pass it to, and I liked this post by Bob Poole, so I’m going to send my copy to the first commenter requesting it. Same rule applies though, that you agree to pass it on to the second commenter. And so on..

Actually, I’m going to add one more rule. You have to add a short note of who and where you are inside the cover. Then pass it on.

Last week I took a much-needed vacation to Cancun, Mexico for a few days. I really wanted to go while it was still cold and wintery in Minnesota, so I guess we lucked out when it was snowing here for the 2 days before the trip. A lot of people seemed to groan when I mentioned I was going to Cancun. We went after the big spring break push, and really enjoyed it. Nowhere was crowded or too busy, but the clubs were still full. A few tips:

- Book a transfer from the airport to the hotel ahead of time. When you get off the plane and walk out of customs you’re going to feel like a fresh bucket of chum for all the companies trying to get your peso. It is a huge relief to walk straight to a driver holding a sign with your name. I picked the first company in Google for cancun transfer, and was completely satisfied with Paradise transfers. No I didn’t get a discount for a link!

- Get to know the waiters at your hotel beach. They provided lots of great tips and information for us and were really friendly.

- If you don’t like surprises, agree on a cab fare before you get in and have some idea of what it should cost. I enjoyed a few surprise stupid-gringo fares, oh well.

- Wear sunscreen. The first day it was cloudy in the morning so I thought I didn’t need any. Boy was I wrong.

- Seriously, wear sun screen.

- Puerto Madero was my favorite restaurant of the trip.

- It truly is paradise. If you need a real “vacation” where your biggest concern is where your next margarita comes from, I don’t think there is a better place than Cancun.

David and Sheena

I’ve been asked for some shopping cart advice and I’m not even sure how to help. Has anyone used CRE Loaded, ideally? I have not been impressed by x-cart at all (yeah James, it sucks). osCommerce is acceptable, but it’s not great either.