Today, I’m excited to be launching Summer of Rails, a new website for the Rails community.

Like a lot of people, I’m pretty stoked about developing applications in Ruby in Rails. I’ve gotten the books, built a shopping cart, all that stuff. But I still haven’t launched my first Rails site. And I’m guessing I’m not alone.

So, here’s the Summer of Rails challenge.

• Learn Rails
• Make something useful
• Badge it

Easy, right? So let’s see how many Rails apps we can launch by the end of summer!

I’m in Chicago for RailsConf. The conference doesn’t start until tomorrow, but the Rails Guidebook and hackfest are happening for those who arrive early.

I’ll probably be at the hackfest today… maybe I’ll see you there?

My business cards finally arrived. (Still not perfect, but way better than the first batch.)

I always surf CNN.com reluctantly. It’s not a great website (even post-redesign), but sometimes it can be useful.

So, check out yesterday’s “Top Stories” on the homepage:

A wife killing her therapist hubby, men leaving towns without husbands, two separate death plunges, a scary dog, a deer beating up a woman, a dead whale, and where Britney Spears might give birth next.

Definitely entertaining. But it’s not really news, is it?

After a long hiatus, Galacticaa.net is back. (For those who don’t know, Galacticaa is my part-time fan site for the new Battlestar Galactica show.)

Last Sunday, I went up to LA for the BSG Season 2 CD release party. Pretty cool event. Got to hear a live performance of the score, with Bear McCreary and many of the other musicians who work on the show. If you’re a fan of the show, read the full blog post.

While BSG is off the air until October, I’ll be blogging about the show over the summer.