along the journey

What has prompted this interest in my blog? Would you believe it if I said Microsoft?  Microsoft has never really been anything to me in the blogging world. This past weekend they released a new product, Windows Live Writer. It’s a desktop blogging application that can post to my wordpress blog.  It’s, as I like to say, Stupid Simple.  So perhaps I can pick up the habit again.  I imagine someone picking up after a messy nun.   (No it’s not really relevant, but it made me smile.)

The other things that has re-ignited my interest in blogging is Matt and his newly re-vamped Christian Gamers Blog. I’m hosting it, and introducing Matt to various features of Wordpress.  I’ve setup some plugins and generally assisted with layout suggestions and troubleshooting. It looks great.  And maybe I can add my name to the authors list, if I can get off my butt and play some games! Perhaps he’ll add boardgame reviews…

Yes it’s true.  I snuck into the locker room extra early to check out the Fromunda!  eeeww!  I got in about 13 laps, down and back before I couldn’t swim a lap without sinking.    I had Cheese to the right of me, and some old geezer next to me, the geez was going when I got there and when I left, I was lapping him, but I’m sure he had already done 13 laps before I got there, and I’m sure he swam 13 when I left, slow and steady was his MO. I can’t figure out how to go slow and pace myself without sinking.  I think I might stick to swimming laps in the evenings when the hardcore swimmers aren’t there.  For those who care, this was the first morning in 2 weeks I’ve made it to the gym.  bah

so the recent posts of just links…. is something sort of neat, but not necessarily interesting. Del.icio.us seems to be posting the links I add during the day. Del.icio.us is a bookmarking tool…. and new things are happening everyday with it… and anytime I find a page I find interesting, I just bookmark it, whether I need to ever look at it again. I set it up once, and it didn’t work. And after I upgraded to the new wordpress it looks like it’s worked every day since…. and I’ve not turned that feature off, beceause it’s cool for me to stop by my page and see my links…. and it also lets you know what I’ve been surfing.

As far as when you can see a real post? um… I’m going to be working from home two days a week until Baby B is born…. and then I’ll have almost 3 weeks off… so this wednesday I hope to actually write something meaningful.

I just don’t care about my blog nomore. I bet it feels neglected. I bet some readers feel neglected. I’m sorry. I’ve become semi-addicted to Yahoo Pool. I’m not good at it, and rarely sit down and play more than 2 games at a time.

We had our first small-group meeting at church last night for the 18-35 year olds. There was only one other person there than is usually at our organizational meetings, but it was great that she was there. I get really excited being around new Christians…. especially new Christians who have found a church home at Cornerstone. I’ve run into more new Christians at Cornerstone during the last year and half than I have in a very long time. I love to hear testimonies about where they’ve come from. And these are adults- it’s hard for me to realize that people come to know Christ as adults, since I’ve been a Christian most of my life. This is an awesome realization, one that has really helped me grow.

We’re looking to change cell carriers now that Cell Number Portability has gone into effect…. not to mention our corporate discount of 15% and 45% on equipment. I’m hoping to get an Ericsson T616, or the Nokia 3650. I can’t decide which one. They both have similar features,one of the biggest things about the Nokia is that it’s got a 16mb memory card included, but the buttons are laid out in the rotary style- in a circle- really odd. When I first saw the phone I didn’t realize that it was in the rotary-style, I just knew that the button layout was odd. Once I realized why they buttons are the way they are I became better with the idea. For those that have our numbers, you don’t need to do anything when we switch!

Today is my one year anniversary at my employer. I was supposed to be a full-time, honest to goodness, working for benefits employee as of January 1st. It’s still not happened. They’ve told me that as soon as the budget for next year is approved that it’ll be almost immediate. But I’ve heard similar things before. I’m happy here, which is why I’m still here. I’d love to have all the benefits a real employee has though.

It’s not often I feel overwhelmed, or like I have too much to do while I’m at work. I have felt that way all week long. Today is really bad. I don’t even know where to begin or what priority to assign tasks….. my manager, he’s in the same boat. Too much going on to help us straighten things out. Tension is running high in the office. For the past few weeks I’ve been hanging out with the engineers during our lunch break…. I’ve actually felt the need to disconnect during my lunch, where for a long time I’d sit at my desk and eat lunch. The disconnect is good, and I’ve started developing relationships with some of the people in my department that I really hadn’t had the opportunity to otherwise.

Point is, I’m stressed. Amy’s stressed. Life doesn’t suck….. it’s just hard. There’s an older CCM song that the end of the chorus goes…. “Life is hard, but God is good.” Life was particularly hard at the time that was popular, the phrase has stuck. It’s come to mind many times since. And again here lately.

My day was mostly spent rebuilding a laptop that had some problems that look to have been caused by a failed security patch. I got the call about 8:30, didn’t finish with it until after 2. The rest of the day, pretty boring. I had two bits of news today, my position was included in the years budget, which will be approved in the next week or two- at which time my position should become permanent, but I’ve heard that before. And secondly, we get to bring our “old” pc’s home. The old pc’s are probably about a year old…. Deskpro Evo 1.7Mhz Proc, 256MB Ram, 20Gb HD….. sweet sweet deal. There is a catch, it remains company property for 2 years. If I leave the company, it’s supposed to come back.

Mom seems to be fine, she and dad flew home on Thursday, and she’s been fine since. I haven’t talked to them in a day or two. But I’m glad she’s doing better.

I’m going to play Ultimate tonight, hopefully Rob is going to join me. Amy and Caleb might come out and play over at the playground for a little while. I dunno.

I promised a real entry, this is a half-assed entry. Sorry.

Well I had more of a workout tonight than I’ve had in over 3 years put together. I went out and played Ultimate Frisbee. A pick-up game out in Owings Mills- about 30 minutes north of here. I got there about 6:30, early into the first of three games I played. I got my hands on the disc a few times, bumbled a bunch of catches, and got injured twice during the last game. The first time a guy was running backwards flailing his arms out trying to get attention, and backhanded me in the jaw and I bit my tongue. The second time it was close to the end of the game and I made a catch and fell to the ground while trying to make a short pass behind me. When I went to stand up again I had a charlie horse in my calf. I tried to stand on it, but the leg wouldn’t hold my weight. I was carried off the field. I’m so out of shape, but I had a blast.

When I got home this evening I got a call from my dad. He and mom are in El Paso at a hospital. Mom has been sick since the drive to Mexico. Mom and Dad made a trip to the hospital yesterday, and then last night were transferred to another hospital. Apparently she’s got all the symptoms of kidney stones, but none of the tests they’ve done show them. Apparently the pain is better today, but they’re not sure what’s going on. I guess her just getting better is the best thing. My little brother (18) and my neice (12) are still at the work camp. Hopefully they’re doing alright. If you could say a prayer or think good thoughts about them…. it’d be appreciated.

There is so much neglect happening to my weblog. My dad misses it. I really should update it more often, if not for any other reason than to make my dad happy. I know it makes him happy, because he tells me that he misses it when I don’t update. He feels out of touch.

Mom and Dad and George, and my neice Kayla are in Mexico this week. I’m so excited for them. They’re there with an organization called people building people, I think, their main goal is to build a house during the next week.

Our trip to Ohio last weekend was one of the most relaxing stays we’ve ever had there. It always seems like we try to fit so much into one small weekend that we spend more time running and planning that relaxing and visiting. Well not this weekend, and we got most of the visiting accomplished, which is more that we usually get. It’s great to know that we have friends there, couples that now have kids, that are truly interested in how we’re doing, and seem to want to have us around at least while we’re there. We miss them.

Last week at work I spent most of my spare time working on writing macros to automate a large amount of our ticketing procedures. This week it doesn’t work at all. I’ve worked and reworked the macros, and I just can’t seem to make them work correctly. Perhaps if Doug purchases licenses for the software than we can get some support for it. This week Doug was out of the office, I spent some time watching a few DVD’s during lunch, didn’t finish it at all. I’ve also been trying to figure out how to make backup copies of my DVD’s, but every time I try to do that it fails.

I had a few job leads thanks to an Uncle, I filled out an application and submitted it along with a resume to him. He mentioned that he’d give the application right to his manager, who has 2 positions open in their department alone. That was over 2 weeks ago. I still haven’t heard anything. I’m still a contractor, coming up on my one year anniversary with this company, would’ve been 8 months as an employee had I been hired on January 1st like was arranged. I begin to wonder how much longer should I wait. But then I realize that I’m happy there, and it’s much better than not having a job at all.

I’m making this post using the CleverCactus software again. It’s not any better than any of the other blogging tools, it’s just different. Trying to wrap my head around a new UI and new concepts… not sure what is so special about it, but it’s definately piqued my interest.

We’re having our small group picnic at our place tomorrow, Amy’s been cleaning like a mad woman. Me, sitting on my ass as normal. I have such a wonderful wife, and she barely puts up with me.

Well today is the second day of hot, sunny weather. Praise God. I heard this weekend that we’ve had 10x more rain that Seattle has this year, and the last time we had this rain was sometime in 1972. That’s just nutts. My theory is that the government had enough of the draught last year and decided to do something to the atmosphere to generate rain. Wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

I haven’t been writing a lot lately, things have just been sort of lazy. I was sick last week. And then with all the rain, we really haven’t been very active. We’re finally getting able to take walks after dinner. Caleb loves this time. He’s so inquisitive, picking up anything that catches his eye, trash or not. We often times make it to the playground at either the area park, or the elementary school. He could play for hours. Much longer than us. Perhaps that’s just because we get bored of watching him. Usually while we’re out the Ice Cream truck drives around. Caleb can recognize the tune…. he says Ice Cream Truck. It’s adorable. He usually gets an ice cream if we run into him on our way home, or if he comes down our street. I hollered at Amy for it, but she says it’s part of summer. We went to the State Park last Sunday, I took some pictures. They’re here, the ones with a -t in the name are thumbnails of the bigger ones. I’ve been having problems getting them added to my photo album for some reason, so that’ll have to do for now.

I bleached my hair on Saturday night, it’s evident in the pictures. There are some dark spots still, not sure why it didn’t take in those areas, perhaps the stuff was just too dry. I think it looks good. Mom and Dad has said they like it. More importantly Amy likes it.

Been playing Blogshares lately. My stats are listed on the right hand side over there, not really formatted very prettily, but some guy bought 80 shares of dean-o.org for $125,000/ea. Took my cash up to 10mil - The game is a lot different when you have that much money. I’m still trying to figure it out. What makes it harder is that I don’t really understand the trends…. I just see stocks that have a low stock price compared to what it’s been and usually buy as much. Wait for it to grow, and sell it off.

It’s been a pretty dull week in Lake Wobegon. At work anyway. I’ve had lots of time to just sit and surf the net, but don’t tell my boss that! Tronster is throwing a house party. I still have stuff that I transported from Cross Rythyms he keeps forgetting to get from me. We were all gonna go, but since Calebs sick, it’ll probably just be me. Hopefully I can convince someone to go with me.

Over the past few days I’ve been looking into what it’ll take to provide hosting as well to the repair/training business…. it looks a little involved, but if I just market it to people I’m working with, it shouldn’t become to unmanageable. If it does, I may just have to quit my job. Wee!

Amy just sent me an email from a person in our community who found her blog, not sure if he found mine yet our not, but it’s neat when that kind of thing happens. Makes the world a little smaller place. If you stop by my blog, let me know.

Atkins Diet is going mostly well. I’ve had few people at work ask me if I’m loosing weight, I don’t feel smaller, the scale hasn’t really showed any difference, but this is coming up on the end of week 2. I’ve had 3 diet sodas, and 0 regular sodas. I’ve had some caffeine in the form of unsweetened tea. Amy started making some sugar-free jello, it’s good stuff. The nutrasweet doesn’t seem to tast all that bad since I’m not consuming sugar to compare it to. I cheated a bit on Sunday when we went to the “House of India” for a buffet after church. I had some of their bread, and I’m sure some of the sauces had some starch or something. I didn’t however eat rice, potatos, beans, or pasta. On Monday night when we went to the movies we had a child-size popcorn to split between us, it really didn’t even taste very good.

I’m thinking about visiting Horizons this Sunday, I have to figure out which one Tronster goes to. This weekend Amy probably won’t be going to church since we have to keep Caleb away from other kids and pregnant women. I’ve been wanting to check Horizons out. Maybe I’ll wait until a weekend when Amy can go with me.