All of Jacob Emerick's posts, page 30 of 57.

Noah at One Year

First tricycle ride

Over a year ago a life-changing event showed up in the middle of Katie and I's simple lives, something that complicated and enriched our little family forever. Noah Emerick was born. Since he arrived we've endured an onslaught of dirty diapers, interrupted nights, and half-hearted adherance to his…

  • Category Personal
  • Posted July 6, 2014
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South Bluff of Rockland

Rutted muddy road past  Irish Hollow Cemetery

Sitting south of the town of Rockland and the famous Minesota Mine is a long buff overlooking the Military Hills. The bluff is not especially tall, staying below 1400'. Other outcroppings along the Trap Hills and Gogebic Ridge easily close in on 1600'. In fact, if it wasn't for Irish Hollow Cemetery…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted July 3, 2014
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Slightly Shuffled

Shuffling with tolerance of two

It's pretty easy to shuffle a list/array in PHP. There's a function, shuffle(), that will simply randomize the order of elements. It also assigns new keys to the array, possibly a side effect of the internal algorithm that it uses. However, if you want to partially shuffle an array, there is no…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted July 1, 2014
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Lightfoot Bay near Skanee

Shaded cabin on the bay

A cold breeze drifted up from the small bay and through the trees. Finally. All day I had been hiking through stifling heat of the forest near Mount Benison, unseasonal heat that had sapped the energy out of me, and even the narrow waterway of Huron Bay offered some relief. With a grateful sigh I…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted June 27, 2014
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Grouping with Regex

Grouping is an insanely powerful regex feature that is often underutilized. Sure, a lot of PHP developers know that if you wrap part of a pattern in '()' than you can pull that chunk out using preg_match and the optional $matches variable, but there's so much more you can do. Direct matching is just…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted June 26, 2014
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Mink Run up Mt Benison

Spring green light in the forest

The trail along Mountain Lake faded in and out like a quicksilver snake. Downed branches and undergrowth masked sections, leftovers from the long winter, and other parts just slipped into the ground. I tried my best to follow it on my way from Turner Point to the mouth of Mink Run. There's a marsh…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted June 21, 2014
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Turner Point of Mountain Lake

Early summer light over Cliff Lake

Predawn light streamed over Cliff Lake, dim pinks and blues reflecting off the calm surface far below. I stood uneasily on the outcropping. It would be at least an hour before the sun would break over Mt Benison's bulk and throngs of mosquitoes already surrounded me with a steady whine. A full of…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted June 19, 2014
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Birthday Trip to the Dells

Layers and layers of soft sandstone

During the summer of 2010 Katie planned an awesome birthday trip for us. It was a three-day camping trip to the west side of Wisconsin, complete with caves and exploring and circus museums. And then unexpected things derailed the plans. Instead of heading out west we just stayed in Appleton,…

  • Category Personal
  • Posted June 18, 2014
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Initial Experience with Reveal.js

There are few tasks that I cringe about more than putting together a presentation with a standard slideshow program. With my background in web development the drag-and-drop process, mixing of content with design, and maintaining consistency through an evolving forty-plus slideshow is clunky and…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted June 14, 2014
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The Hill of Ericks Road

A muddy little side track

Roads that lead east from Big Erick's tend to lose their name. Sure, there is Ford and the Northwestern, two roads that are difficult to define as they twist and fork over rocky and pitted ground. There's one road that I've always called Erick's, the one that leads past Bald Mountain and along the…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted June 12, 2014
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