Geoff Duncan

My apologies to (any?) readers for the paucity of updates lately. The last couple months have been busy with tight deadlines, new projects, and a medium-term gig in downtown Seattle (mentioned back in November). One result is that a bunch of things have been put on back burners, including personal correspondence, this Web site, and…well, eating and sleeping.

Sunset over First Avenue, Seattle, Washington

Downtown, I've been heading up quality assurance and testing on a high-profile Web site redesign for a specialty consumer electronics retailer that does home theater, audiophile-grade gear, custom installations, home automation, and the like. Although the site is pretty straightforward in principle—especially since the client doesn't want to conduct any e-commerce—we still have to interface with the client's existing CRM system and build content management features so the client can handle the site's products and employees, interact with customers and partners, showcase particular brands and products, and more. Plus, it all has to look cool, even in Internet Explorer 6 (yuck!). From a testing perspective, it's like shooting fish in a barrel—there are about a bazillion things that can go wrong—but I find myself approaching the site more like a publishing project than a software project. Despite some unexpectedly long hours, it's been a fun bit of work with a good group of people. And, so far, the client has been pleased with the results.

This development shop one of the bigger tenants in 20-plus story building in downtown Seattle. One thing that the client probably didn't count on is that, in the evenings and on weekends while I'm waiting for builds to compile or test suites to wrap up…I'll go exploring. I got a few good pictures from up on the roof, including a nice view of a reflected sunset over First Avenue in Seattle.

But the last few months haven't all been nose-to-the-grindstone: I've been having some low-stress fun playing out with The Bouchards, a local roots/Americana/country outfit with an album coming out of the pipeline shortly. There was also some recording with Max Keene and Mat Matthews that hopefully will see the light someday.

I've also finished the latest round of ratings for On The Premises' fourth story contest. I'm looking forward to learning which stories won: it was an exceptionally strong collection this time.