To educate, inform, inspire

40 Days

My wife (and best friend and soulmate/ love of my life), Jeri DuBois, passed away on April 3, 2020. We had nearly 45 years of marriage together (our anniversary would have been in May). During that time, I came to know a very special person (in so many ways). She […]

Read More

DuBois Epic Excursion 1

I recently returned from a short trip to South Dakota and Wyoming. I traveled there with my son and eldest grandson. I thought it might be interesting to share our experiences with others. I put together a trip summary using Adobe Spark Page (just follow the link and you will […]

Read More

My first year in retirement

Those who know, realize that I retired as a tenured full professor from an Illinois community college effective June 30, 2017. Since it has now been a full year, I thought it might be helpful to provide a bit of a recap on some of my activities. I am just […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C+1

After the competition concluded, there were closing ceremonies. This is where medals were awarded and everyone had a chance to celebrate and say farewell (most traveled home the following day). It was also a chance for me to do a little more sight seeing (I visited a local souk and […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C4

The final day of the competition focused on a team project. Teams of 4 were assigned and each team was given the task of creating a website for the local Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Each team was given a few hours to complete their work (most developed a WordPress based […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C3

This was the third day of the competition. The focus today was on client side development. I was part of the team which prepared this document for the competition. Here is a snapshot of Marcelo Strehl presenting the client side module to competitors in the morning. The client side project […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C2

Today was the second day of the competition (Monday). Yes, I am running a bit behind in my daily updates. There are many activities (for both experts and competitors). The focus throughout the day was on server side development. In the morning, competitors developed an API (which was reviewed by […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C1

Today was the first day of competition (Sunday = start of work week in some areas of the world). This was the first full day of competition. Competitors met first in the morning for a briefing about the project they will work upon. They are not allowed to ask questions. […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C-2

We are now two days from the start of the actual web design and development competition. Today was familiarization day. Competitors were assigned workstations and URLs on the server. They had the opportunity to test out the software and report any problems. One they were satisfied the software was working […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C-3

Today was another busy day. We updated a fair amount of software on the workstations and server. I was part of the team which made certain Zeal Docs (and the appropriate docsets) were available on each workstation. We also reviewed the projects, confirmed there were at least 30% changes from […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C-4

We are getting closer to the actual competition. We began the day with introductions and learned a bit about the history of the Web Design contest at WorldSkills. The first happened in 2001 and it has grown steadily ever since. Most of the day, we focused on coordinating how we […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C-5

I picked up my expert badge and related materials at the main WorldSkills event venue this morning. I believe this is the largest such event in the history of WorldSkills. Roughly 1,200 experts are participating in many different competitions. I then spent part of the day locating where our event […]

Read More

WorldSkills 2017 Abu Dhabi Day C-6

I find it hard to believe it has already been two years since the last WorldSkills in Brazil. This year, we meet in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates). Yesterday (and today were mostly days of travel). I left Peoria mid-morning on Sunday. After crossing 10 time zones, traveling roughly 7,500 […]

Read More

2017 – What a summer – part 1

I am traveling a lot this summer and thought readers might like an update as to my activities. In a nutshell, here are the trips I completed in the past few months. I plan to summarize these travels in separate posts. The first 2 trips are summarized in this post. […]

Read More

Ricoh Theta

I recently returned from the Adobe Education Leader Summit (held in New York City this year). Several colleagues were taking a number of photos using their new cameras. After further investigation, I had to get one of these puppies myself. It is the Ricoh Theta model “S.” It takes 360 […]

Read More
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial