Morning arrived too soon for me. I walked the healthier dog while was still half asleep and fed him in much the same way. My morning coffee helped clear the cobwebs and by the time it "kicked in", I was ready to do my daily bible reading. I am reading the "Song of Songs" in the Old testament. If you think God does not want you to enjoy sex (within the boundaries of marriage), you need to read it. Good stuff.
I stopped and got gasoline for the Dakota on my way to work since the price had dropped 10 cents or so since last week. It most likely will go back up...I need something more economical but we just cannot afford to buy anything at this time.
Work started out at a decent click, not overly busy but steady enough to keep me from checking any personal e-mail until now. At 10:50 my boss asked me to sit in a meeting regarding some of the software installs that I have been doing and it was semi-informative. I think a summary would have been sufficient but if they felt the need to have me attend, then so be it.
Most of our issues have been Linux related and since I am trying to learn more, I tried to help out some. I managed to fix one, but the other two were really beyond my skill set so I had to pass them on to the local tech. He is pretty nice to me since I do not have the skills he has and he has been gracious to take some of the harder cases from me when needed. Nice guy.
Today is the day our Golden has ACL surgery. My wife called a few minutes ago to let me know the surgery was almost over and the dog is looking good. My wife is very happy now. We were told that our Golden will never be able to run and play like she used to or she may damage that knee again. That is going to be tough on her, but you do what you have to do.
I started adding something to my diet. Not diet as in special food, but diet as in what I eat/drink. I have tried to eat only low or no trans fat foods when I can, I drink as much water as I can, but I have also added 2 cups of green tea to my diet each day (one in the AM and one in the afternoon. I have heard many good things about green tea and I am anxious to possibly gain some of those benefits. I am concerned about caffeine, though. I have one diet soda and 2 cups of coffee a day, PLUS the two cups of green tea. Is that too much? I also think it is a diuretic, because I am making mad trips to the men's room. I usually go pretty frequently, (thanx to all the water I drink) but I seem to go more when I drink the tea. I have been drinking it for about a week. I am sure it will take at least 8 weeks before I see any effects from it.
I got an e-mail from Microsoft the other day informing me that I will NOT be getting my "free" USB thumb drive. Seems like I was just a bit too late in requesting it. No one I know got one...they all got the same e-mail.
I have been considering getting USD-TV. It is basically Hi-Def TV broadcast over the air and while it does not have the variety that cable or satellite does, it has the channels I want, minus History and A&E (and Fox Sports, but we cannot have it all now, can we?). Most of the programming is family friendly and it is cheaper than cable. While I can get about 30-40 more channels with cable, many of those are nothing I want to see and basic cable is over $50 a month. It is only available in limited areas. I would still need to find a broadband provider (naked DSL or wireless internet) but that would not bee a major issue.
I know this sounds stupid, but I really hope August gets here quickly. Both mine and my wife's cell phones will not hold a charge more than 36 hours. The more you charge a phone, the shorter the life span becomes and we have had these phones just shy of 2 years. I know I can get free ones when we renew the contract. 3 months is a long time when your phone will not hold a charge.
My wife and I were discussing finances and she asked me if we were still going to visit my mom in October. To be perfectly honest, I cannot see how we can afford it. We have depleted our surplus and with the added debt of the dog operation (almost $3,000) it is not looking good. I have not seem my mom since last summer and I would like to visit. If I go by myself, I will save some money because I can stay with mom...her small house does not bother me, but if my wife goes with me, then we have to take the dogs and that is going to be way too much for her tiny 800 sq ft house. It will only cost me gas, two nights at a state park (where I sleep) and food. Even with the cost of gas, it still should be doable.
Today is the monthly birthday celebration here at work. I am glad I did not stuff myself at lunch because they usually have a ton of finger food. It all tastes so good :) They have junk food as well, but I try not too eat too much of that. I have to sample some of it though...
Last night was One to One Discipling with my wife's boss. We only have 2 more lessons to go. It is more of a formality than anything else, he is already stronger in his faith than I think I am. Oh, I have my moments, but he is in his 50's and has been a Christian for 30 years or so. I am still in my infancy.
Tonight is care group night and we are having Taco Salad. Last week was picnic style with all the care groups and we had burgers and hot dogs and all the sides. We pitched horse shoes and played volleyball (at least I did until my wife caught me playing...I tend to dive and that is not good for me any more) and generally had a great time. It was windy (isn't it always in Texas?) and that kicked up a lot of sand and dust but we all had fun.
I need to cut the grass tomorrow if it does not rain. It is not high yet but it will be in a few days. I have already adjusted my watering days and duration to comply with the water usage restrictions we have in effect here in my town. We are not as bad as others, but we still will pay stiff fee if we use over the allotted amount.
Well, lunch is over. I better get back to work.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Holiday Weekend Update
Memorial Day weekend started on Friday for some but for me it was business as usual. I was working right up until I left at my customary 4:30 PM. Now that did not bother me at all. The weekend was going to be a quiet one and I had no major plans. I had cut the grass the day before so I had nothing I HAD to do, although there are things we all WANT to do.
Friday evening about 9:30 or so, I received an e-mail stating that *Mickey's mother in law (*Mary's mother) had passed away. "Mary" had gone up just 2 days before to visit her mother, knowing that her health was failing. She was blessed with two days to visit.
"Mickey" was planning on driving up Saturday afternoon, so I just assumed that we were not going out to breakfast. He had contacted "Bob" and "Joe" and invited them to go with us. I was surprised to hear "Mickey" say, "Nope, we are still going to breakfast...I need you guys!"
The next morning I got cleaned up and did "the ritual" (walk/feed dogs, shower, coffee) minus breakfast. I checked e-mail, started some downloads, and did a few other things when I noticed that it was about time for "Mickey" to pick me up. I always like to be outside waiting when my friends come by to pick me up...I am funny that way.
"Mickey" was late, but that was no big deal. "Joe" called me just as "Mickey" pulled up, so I told "Joe" we were 5 minutes away. We picked up "Joe" and headed over to get "Bob". "Bob" lived not too far from me, which surprised me. I thought he lived further south.
We headed to "The Original Pancake House" for a late breakfast. There was a wait of about 20 minutes or so, but the time went by pretty fast. We ordered and when our food arrived, we dove in with gusto, making time to chat. "Mickey" had a lot on his mind, but he still chatted with us all.
The food was great. Everyone ordered eggs but me. I cannot stand the smell or taste of eggs. I guess my dad ruined that for me. He ate eggs all the time and made me eat them on weekends with him. I almost gagged and to this day they gross me out. I instead had crepes. While not "man food", I did order a side of their wonderful bacon. I normally only eat my bacon crispy, but this thick cut bacon was fantastic. BACON!
I got back home and helped my wife put up some window (UV and heat reflecting) film on the patio doors. WORD OF WARNING: This type of job is a two person job. If you are going to put this on large glass surfaces, I suggest three people.
Normally my wife and I do not work together very well. Not sure why, but we do not. Amazingly enough, we got through this task unscathed. Go us! Do not get me wrong, the job is far from perfect, but it looks pretty good all things considered.
I killed the rest of the day by replacing the toilet flappers, replacing light bulbs, paying bills, and finishing up Babylon 5 season 5. I now only have the Babylon 5 movies to watch. They may just be long episodes that I have already seem, but that is ok. If they are, then I will just jump full force into Farscape and Star Blazers.
Sunday's ritual rarely changes. I went to go teach Sunday school, but since this was a holiday weekend, the turnout was nil. I hung around for while, read my bible some, and then went service. My wife was late getting to church. She has been having trouble sleeping again. It seems every couple of months she has this problem. She will go to bed at 10 or 11 PM, wake up at 2 or 3 AM, and go back to bed at 5 AM, getting up again at 8 or 9 AM. We are not sure what the problem is.
After church we grabbed a quick bite at Wendy's and ran a few errands. We came back home and just took it easy. I called my mom and talked to her for about an hour while my wife took a nap. Not much new with her. Not much ever changes in her world.
Monday after I got "the ritual" done, I began to vacuum the house. After I had finished that (and two loads of clothes) I went out to weed the area around our shrubs. That spot gets some very heavy Bermuda grass invading it on a regular basis. Living in Texas, we cannot grow rye grass or fescue. The heat is so intense that it would burn up unless you watered it every day. Most lawns are Bermuda or Saint Augustine grass. Both are very drought resistant, but they have some side effects that are a little odd if you have never had them before. First, they both die in the winter. Instead of a green lawn all year long, you get a lovely brown lawn in November that lasts about 3-4 months. Bermuda grass will grow "creepers" that will grown horizonally across your lawn to help thicken it, but the bad part about that is the the "creepers" will go between landscaping bricks and stones and UNDER the metal landscaping borders and creep into your flower beds. It can get to be a mess.
After my lawn adventures, I helped my wife wash her van. It was COATED with thousands of "love bugs" that had died in the act of procreating when our van smacked into them. Almost every vehicle we saw on the high way to and from Florida was coated with them.
We got the van finished on the outside (well mostly...my wife did not do the ArmorAll on the wheels (I hate that stuff...especially on the steering wheel) and I went to Krogers to get some sandwiches. NEVER send me to the store hungry. I cam back with mangos, chips, ice cream, and sandwiches. I forgot I was out of Monster Khaos Energy Drinks or I would have gotten them, too. I guess that since I only picked up a small basket to get the sandwiches instead of a cart, I could only fill it up so far. Lucky me.
After a quick dinner of sandwiches and chips, we watched UFC 60 (taped from Saturday). The main event was Matt Hughes and the legendary Royce Gracie. There were some other good matches as well, but that one was very, very good. Royce is old school and Matt is one of the new breed of warriors. I have been a fan of Matt Hughes for about a year now, going back to watch some of his older matches. The man is "super gorilla strong" as Joe Rogan would say.
When that was over, we watched "Serenity" again. "Serenity" is a good movie with several good one-liners that builds on the "Firefly" series. If you have not seen it, please do so. If you can get the DVD's for "Firefly", get them. The series was wonderful.
After watching those two videos, I was ready to hit the hay. I knew Tuesday would be busy (as previously blogged) and my wife needed her sleep since she had to take the Golden to the surgeon today to see what could be done. It looks like about $2600 or so is what the surgery will cost. Looks like we will have to extend our debt another years or so. The good news is that at least the dog is in very good health other than her blown ACL. That is a blessing.
*Not their real names
Friday evening about 9:30 or so, I received an e-mail stating that *Mickey's mother in law (*Mary's mother) had passed away. "Mary" had gone up just 2 days before to visit her mother, knowing that her health was failing. She was blessed with two days to visit.
"Mickey" was planning on driving up Saturday afternoon, so I just assumed that we were not going out to breakfast. He had contacted "Bob" and "Joe" and invited them to go with us. I was surprised to hear "Mickey" say, "Nope, we are still going to breakfast...I need you guys!"
The next morning I got cleaned up and did "the ritual" (walk/feed dogs, shower, coffee) minus breakfast. I checked e-mail, started some downloads, and did a few other things when I noticed that it was about time for "Mickey" to pick me up. I always like to be outside waiting when my friends come by to pick me up...I am funny that way.
"Mickey" was late, but that was no big deal. "Joe" called me just as "Mickey" pulled up, so I told "Joe" we were 5 minutes away. We picked up "Joe" and headed over to get "Bob". "Bob" lived not too far from me, which surprised me. I thought he lived further south.
We headed to "The Original Pancake House" for a late breakfast. There was a wait of about 20 minutes or so, but the time went by pretty fast. We ordered and when our food arrived, we dove in with gusto, making time to chat. "Mickey" had a lot on his mind, but he still chatted with us all.
The food was great. Everyone ordered eggs but me. I cannot stand the smell or taste of eggs. I guess my dad ruined that for me. He ate eggs all the time and made me eat them on weekends with him. I almost gagged and to this day they gross me out. I instead had crepes. While not "man food", I did order a side of their wonderful bacon. I normally only eat my bacon crispy, but this thick cut bacon was fantastic. BACON!
I got back home and helped my wife put up some window (UV and heat reflecting) film on the patio doors. WORD OF WARNING: This type of job is a two person job. If you are going to put this on large glass surfaces, I suggest three people.
Normally my wife and I do not work together very well. Not sure why, but we do not. Amazingly enough, we got through this task unscathed. Go us! Do not get me wrong, the job is far from perfect, but it looks pretty good all things considered.
I killed the rest of the day by replacing the toilet flappers, replacing light bulbs, paying bills, and finishing up Babylon 5 season 5. I now only have the Babylon 5 movies to watch. They may just be long episodes that I have already seem, but that is ok. If they are, then I will just jump full force into Farscape and Star Blazers.
Sunday's ritual rarely changes. I went to go teach Sunday school, but since this was a holiday weekend, the turnout was nil. I hung around for while, read my bible some, and then went service. My wife was late getting to church. She has been having trouble sleeping again. It seems every couple of months she has this problem. She will go to bed at 10 or 11 PM, wake up at 2 or 3 AM, and go back to bed at 5 AM, getting up again at 8 or 9 AM. We are not sure what the problem is.
After church we grabbed a quick bite at Wendy's and ran a few errands. We came back home and just took it easy. I called my mom and talked to her for about an hour while my wife took a nap. Not much new with her. Not much ever changes in her world.
Monday after I got "the ritual" done, I began to vacuum the house. After I had finished that (and two loads of clothes) I went out to weed the area around our shrubs. That spot gets some very heavy Bermuda grass invading it on a regular basis. Living in Texas, we cannot grow rye grass or fescue. The heat is so intense that it would burn up unless you watered it every day. Most lawns are Bermuda or Saint Augustine grass. Both are very drought resistant, but they have some side effects that are a little odd if you have never had them before. First, they both die in the winter. Instead of a green lawn all year long, you get a lovely brown lawn in November that lasts about 3-4 months. Bermuda grass will grow "creepers" that will grown horizonally across your lawn to help thicken it, but the bad part about that is the the "creepers" will go between landscaping bricks and stones and UNDER the metal landscaping borders and creep into your flower beds. It can get to be a mess.
After my lawn adventures, I helped my wife wash her van. It was COATED with thousands of "love bugs" that had died in the act of procreating when our van smacked into them. Almost every vehicle we saw on the high way to and from Florida was coated with them.
We got the van finished on the outside (well mostly...my wife did not do the ArmorAll on the wheels (I hate that stuff...especially on the steering wheel) and I went to Krogers to get some sandwiches. NEVER send me to the store hungry. I cam back with mangos, chips, ice cream, and sandwiches. I forgot I was out of Monster Khaos Energy Drinks or I would have gotten them, too. I guess that since I only picked up a small basket to get the sandwiches instead of a cart, I could only fill it up so far. Lucky me.
After a quick dinner of sandwiches and chips, we watched UFC 60 (taped from Saturday). The main event was Matt Hughes and the legendary Royce Gracie. There were some other good matches as well, but that one was very, very good. Royce is old school and Matt is one of the new breed of warriors. I have been a fan of Matt Hughes for about a year now, going back to watch some of his older matches. The man is "super gorilla strong" as Joe Rogan would say.
When that was over, we watched "Serenity" again. "Serenity" is a good movie with several good one-liners that builds on the "Firefly" series. If you have not seen it, please do so. If you can get the DVD's for "Firefly", get them. The series was wonderful.
After watching those two videos, I was ready to hit the hay. I knew Tuesday would be busy (as previously blogged) and my wife needed her sleep since she had to take the Golden to the surgeon today to see what could be done. It looks like about $2600 or so is what the surgery will cost. Looks like we will have to extend our debt another years or so. The good news is that at least the dog is in very good health other than her blown ACL. That is a blessing.
*Not their real names
Whoa Nelly!
I have been here at work just about 2 hours now. It is Tuesday, the day after a holiday for the US (Memorial Day, for all my international readers) and my phone has not stopped ringing (wife - dog related stuff, our Incident Manager - High priority ticket status), the ticket queue was huge (didn't anyone on the east and west coast take a holiday?), introduced to the project manager from the West Coast (who needs to wear less clingy clothing...), the East Coast project manager (who I have worked with before), a request to attend a meeting but not given the logistics of it, and a large e-mail box that needed attending.
I can multitask pretty well, so I was not concerned, but I can see it is going to be one of those days.
When I get some time I will do one of my infamous "weekend updates".
I can multitask pretty well, so I was not concerned, but I can see it is going to be one of those days.
When I get some time I will do one of my infamous "weekend updates".
Friday, May 26, 2006
Confusion and an E-mail From Our Son
My wife went to be about the same time I did last night, which was right after I finished Season 5, Episode 17 of Babylon 5...somewhere around 10 PM. She had been crying about our 6 year old Golden who has hip dysplasia and a blown ACL. The dog is in some pain, but we have pain meds to keep her as comfortable as possible. We cannot see the vet again until Tuesday due to their schedule and Monday being a holiday in the US.
She slept until 2 AM, then she woke and spent time with her ailing pet. She cried some more. She turned on the PC and typed me a 1 page letter outlining her decision and her plan. Being an animal lover and a Christian has made this hard. She knows that $2000 is a lot of money and we cannot afford it. Yes, the vet has a payment plan, but it still is going to really set us back. We are trying to get out of about $20,000 of debt (car, credit card, and home repair) and it looks like we have about 2 years of payments to go. Adding this will extend that by about 6 months at least...
I slept through her activities until the alarm woke me 5 AM, my normal waking hour. She had been crying a bit, weeping quietly with the dog near her. When I woke she told me that she wants to think and pray about this before she makes her decision and that the note she typed me she wants to destroy after I read it. I at first told her to destroy it before I read it, but I know that it is important for me to know her state of mind at all times.
I told her to go ahead and get the surgery done. She responded by asking me if that is what God has lead me to decide or if I was doing it because putting the dog down would break my wife's heart. Nabbed again. I do not get many revelations from God, but when I do, I know it. I have not been praying hard on this. I am not sure why...maybe I am just being lazy. Maybe I think I know better than God does (yeah, right!) on this issue. I want to give it up to God, but maybe I am afraid of his answer to me.
Please pray for me, my wife, and our beloved Golden. We desperately need those prayers.
On a lighter note, our son e-mailed us again (twice in one week) asking us to pay his storage unit fee for him. The Army has messed up his pay (surprise!) again and he will not get paid for 3 more weeks...2 weeks later than his bill is due. I have not told him yes, but we will do it for him.
He passed his CDL test and got a 96%. He went on his first convoy (20 miles) and will go on a much longer one before he graduates. He has to drive with others from Missouri to Colorado non-stop. Fun!
He graduates in late June and will be coming back to live with friends. He is slated to ship out to Iraq in October to drive back and forth from Saudi to southern Iraq. While no parent is happy when their child goes to Iraq, at least he is in the southern part...a few less bullets and bomb are there.
She slept until 2 AM, then she woke and spent time with her ailing pet. She cried some more. She turned on the PC and typed me a 1 page letter outlining her decision and her plan. Being an animal lover and a Christian has made this hard. She knows that $2000 is a lot of money and we cannot afford it. Yes, the vet has a payment plan, but it still is going to really set us back. We are trying to get out of about $20,000 of debt (car, credit card, and home repair) and it looks like we have about 2 years of payments to go. Adding this will extend that by about 6 months at least...
I slept through her activities until the alarm woke me 5 AM, my normal waking hour. She had been crying a bit, weeping quietly with the dog near her. When I woke she told me that she wants to think and pray about this before she makes her decision and that the note she typed me she wants to destroy after I read it. I at first told her to destroy it before I read it, but I know that it is important for me to know her state of mind at all times.
I told her to go ahead and get the surgery done. She responded by asking me if that is what God has lead me to decide or if I was doing it because putting the dog down would break my wife's heart. Nabbed again. I do not get many revelations from God, but when I do, I know it. I have not been praying hard on this. I am not sure why...maybe I am just being lazy. Maybe I think I know better than God does (yeah, right!) on this issue. I want to give it up to God, but maybe I am afraid of his answer to me.
Please pray for me, my wife, and our beloved Golden. We desperately need those prayers.
On a lighter note, our son e-mailed us again (twice in one week) asking us to pay his storage unit fee for him. The Army has messed up his pay (surprise!) again and he will not get paid for 3 more weeks...2 weeks later than his bill is due. I have not told him yes, but we will do it for him.
He passed his CDL test and got a 96%. He went on his first convoy (20 miles) and will go on a much longer one before he graduates. He has to drive with others from Missouri to Colorado non-stop. Fun!
He graduates in late June and will be coming back to live with friends. He is slated to ship out to Iraq in October to drive back and forth from Saudi to southern Iraq. While no parent is happy when their child goes to Iraq, at least he is in the southern part...a few less bullets and bomb are there.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
What to Do?
We received some bad news today. Our 6 year old Golden is going to need a $2000 dollar operation. The worse news is that in a year or two, she most likely will need another to correct a not so serious problem she has now, that *will* be serious in a year or two...allow me to explain in detail:
Our 6 year old Golden has hip displasia. Her hip is weak but she can walk on it for short distances. the other day, she tore her ACL in her knee and she cannot put any weight on that leg at all. If we do not get her operated on, then she runs the risk on ruining her good hip as well, and we most likely would have to put her down. Now if we get her operated on for her ACL, she will most likely need another surgery in 1-2 years to repair her damaged hip. Each surgery costs about $2000 each. I do not want this to come down to a matter of money, nor do I want this to be an emotional snap decision. Golden's with hip displasia usually live until they 10- 12 years old, which means that we have about 4-6 years on average to have her around.
My wife is very upset. She knows that this is money we do not have and while the surgeon has payment plans, we really cannot afford $100-200 a month beyond what we bay in bills now unless my wife increases her hours (and I am not sure that is wise).
If this dog was 2-4 years older, I would most likely consider on putting her down, money issues aside. Since she is just shy of becoming a senior, the choice becomes very difficult. My wife loves that dog and we treat our dogs as well as most people treat their kids. We want to do everything we can, but we do not want to extend their lives just to make us happy.
I do not want this to be a financial decision. I mean, I had to have surgery in January (well, I could have decided against it and lived with the pain, but that is another story), but I had insurance. We do not have dog health insurance and the last time I checked on it (and believe me I have), it did not have very good benefits. The surgery is going to be expensive and we are going to be paying for it for at least 18 months..and if we have to get the second surgery, we will be paying on the medical bills for 3+ years.
I do not want this to be an emotional decision, either. My wife has really fallen in love with this dog and will just fall apart the day that big Golden dies. We have had it since it was 4 months old and it has been a very good companion for my wife when she travels. That dog is her child.
My heart wants to get the dog operated on., but how will an active dog react to surgery? Will it heal properly? People that have had ACL surgery usually have to stay off the leg for a while and then have extensive physical therapy. Can we cope with a large dog after surgery? My wife cannot life our smaller dog, let along a 70 pound Golden Retriever.
I am sure that tonight I will be doing a lot of praying. God give me the strength to stand by whatever decision needs to be made.
Our 6 year old Golden has hip displasia. Her hip is weak but she can walk on it for short distances. the other day, she tore her ACL in her knee and she cannot put any weight on that leg at all. If we do not get her operated on, then she runs the risk on ruining her good hip as well, and we most likely would have to put her down. Now if we get her operated on for her ACL, she will most likely need another surgery in 1-2 years to repair her damaged hip. Each surgery costs about $2000 each. I do not want this to come down to a matter of money, nor do I want this to be an emotional snap decision. Golden's with hip displasia usually live until they 10- 12 years old, which means that we have about 4-6 years on average to have her around.
My wife is very upset. She knows that this is money we do not have and while the surgeon has payment plans, we really cannot afford $100-200 a month beyond what we bay in bills now unless my wife increases her hours (and I am not sure that is wise).
If this dog was 2-4 years older, I would most likely consider on putting her down, money issues aside. Since she is just shy of becoming a senior, the choice becomes very difficult. My wife loves that dog and we treat our dogs as well as most people treat their kids. We want to do everything we can, but we do not want to extend their lives just to make us happy.
I do not want this to be a financial decision. I mean, I had to have surgery in January (well, I could have decided against it and lived with the pain, but that is another story), but I had insurance. We do not have dog health insurance and the last time I checked on it (and believe me I have), it did not have very good benefits. The surgery is going to be expensive and we are going to be paying for it for at least 18 months..and if we have to get the second surgery, we will be paying on the medical bills for 3+ years.
I do not want this to be an emotional decision, either. My wife has really fallen in love with this dog and will just fall apart the day that big Golden dies. We have had it since it was 4 months old and it has been a very good companion for my wife when she travels. That dog is her child.
My heart wants to get the dog operated on., but how will an active dog react to surgery? Will it heal properly? People that have had ACL surgery usually have to stay off the leg for a while and then have extensive physical therapy. Can we cope with a large dog after surgery? My wife cannot life our smaller dog, let along a 70 pound Golden Retriever.
I am sure that tonight I will be doing a lot of praying. God give me the strength to stand by whatever decision needs to be made.
Fight Club
I was a small kid from a poor family that got bullied quite a bit up to and including high school. I did not fight back much until my freshman year of high school when I completely exploded on a kid who was not going to quit until I fought him. Long story short, he picked 2 fights in 2 years and I defeated him both times. The first time, he only got one swing at me during the fight. The remainder of the time I pummelled him while he curled up into a tight ball trying to avoid my punches. He did not look very good the next day, but he did not bother me until the following year.
That next year, he tried his luck again. He had the larger guys keep me on the bus until I was the last one off. When the bus left, they forced me into a circle of guys with my opponent in the middle. I did not want to fight him again. I was not fearful of him, but I did a number on him the last time and I was kinda worried that I might really hurt him this time. Well, my fears were for nothing. He swung and missed and my counter punch landed landed 3-4 inches beyond where I had intended and I broke my right hand on his head. The force was enough to knock him down and keep him down for a minute or so. He eventually got back up and I had to finish the fight left handed. I am not a southpaw and I was worried this was going to be a long, painful event.
For whatever reason (maybe my left handed jabs confused him...they were pretty sloppy), he started kicking at me. Back then, kicking in a fight was a good way to get you laughed at, however since he started using his feet, albeit poorly, I did the same. I have very strong legs and hips, so my kicks carried considerably more power than his, so he was hurting quickly. He was so focused on my legs I was able to slip in a couple of lefts that finally put him down and made him so disoriented that he was unable to stand without help. I ended the fight and walked home.
I never got into any other fights that I can remember after that. I had some close calls, but cooler heads prevailed. I did not and do not like to fight. I do not think it solves anything. But I always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would find myself around someone who had an axe to grind and I was an easy target: small,lightweight, glasses, poor, and rather ugly. I usually was able to talk my way out, or get away when I needed to. What amazes me is the number of times I have just faced my opponent and stood my ground and had them walk away. I guess that is what bullies do.. I have had several instances where that has happened and I have never had to throw a punch. I was at a concern when a guy kept falling into me and I just turned and stared at him with a stone face. He never touched me again. Once the neighborhood bully started pushing me and instead of trying to avoid it, I pushed him back. I stood there with my fists balled up in a relaxed fighting stance that a friend showed me and the guy walked away.
During the time I have been married (to my current wife...the love of my life), I have been the protector at least two times. Both times we were in downtown Durham, NC and both times I believe the men were homeless. One guy tried to get into the car where my wife was sitting and I convinced him to leave her along. The other time a man stumbled out of a shadowy alley and demanded money. I did not have a wallet on me an my wife did not have her purse. We did not see a weapon in his hand, but we were both nervous. I got between him and my wife and told her to lock herself in the car and call 911. I was just hoping he did not have a partner working with him lurking about. He didn't and the encounter ended without any violence. I was relieved about that. Street fights scare me.
My early childhood had its share of little fights. One boy who was younger than me thought he would try to exude his dominance over me by shoving me around. That fight ended when I dragged him through some bushes in my yard that had briars in them. When I need to be, I can be very creative.
In my mid-teens, a couple of the guys in the neighborhood began watching my movements, when I would leave and when I would return. I noticed this and started changing my routine. It took me a while but I found out he thought I was fooling around with a girl he liked. Now that in itself is odd because he would date girls that I had gone out with previously. He did that a couple of times. AS a matter of fact, after I was divorced and remarried, a girl he just broke up with asked me out. I knew her from high school and the years had been kind to her, but I thought it best to stay away. We were not kids anymore and he has a pretty short fuse.
I am not sure why fighting was on my mind today, but it is. I am not feeling particularly violent.
That next year, he tried his luck again. He had the larger guys keep me on the bus until I was the last one off. When the bus left, they forced me into a circle of guys with my opponent in the middle. I did not want to fight him again. I was not fearful of him, but I did a number on him the last time and I was kinda worried that I might really hurt him this time. Well, my fears were for nothing. He swung and missed and my counter punch landed landed 3-4 inches beyond where I had intended and I broke my right hand on his head. The force was enough to knock him down and keep him down for a minute or so. He eventually got back up and I had to finish the fight left handed. I am not a southpaw and I was worried this was going to be a long, painful event.
For whatever reason (maybe my left handed jabs confused him...they were pretty sloppy), he started kicking at me. Back then, kicking in a fight was a good way to get you laughed at, however since he started using his feet, albeit poorly, I did the same. I have very strong legs and hips, so my kicks carried considerably more power than his, so he was hurting quickly. He was so focused on my legs I was able to slip in a couple of lefts that finally put him down and made him so disoriented that he was unable to stand without help. I ended the fight and walked home.
I never got into any other fights that I can remember after that. I had some close calls, but cooler heads prevailed. I did not and do not like to fight. I do not think it solves anything. But I always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would find myself around someone who had an axe to grind and I was an easy target: small,lightweight, glasses, poor, and rather ugly. I usually was able to talk my way out, or get away when I needed to. What amazes me is the number of times I have just faced my opponent and stood my ground and had them walk away. I guess that is what bullies do.. I have had several instances where that has happened and I have never had to throw a punch. I was at a concern when a guy kept falling into me and I just turned and stared at him with a stone face. He never touched me again. Once the neighborhood bully started pushing me and instead of trying to avoid it, I pushed him back. I stood there with my fists balled up in a relaxed fighting stance that a friend showed me and the guy walked away.
During the time I have been married (to my current wife...the love of my life), I have been the protector at least two times. Both times we were in downtown Durham, NC and both times I believe the men were homeless. One guy tried to get into the car where my wife was sitting and I convinced him to leave her along. The other time a man stumbled out of a shadowy alley and demanded money. I did not have a wallet on me an my wife did not have her purse. We did not see a weapon in his hand, but we were both nervous. I got between him and my wife and told her to lock herself in the car and call 911. I was just hoping he did not have a partner working with him lurking about. He didn't and the encounter ended without any violence. I was relieved about that. Street fights scare me.
My early childhood had its share of little fights. One boy who was younger than me thought he would try to exude his dominance over me by shoving me around. That fight ended when I dragged him through some bushes in my yard that had briars in them. When I need to be, I can be very creative.
In my mid-teens, a couple of the guys in the neighborhood began watching my movements, when I would leave and when I would return. I noticed this and started changing my routine. It took me a while but I found out he thought I was fooling around with a girl he liked. Now that in itself is odd because he would date girls that I had gone out with previously. He did that a couple of times. AS a matter of fact, after I was divorced and remarried, a girl he just broke up with asked me out. I knew her from high school and the years had been kind to her, but I thought it best to stay away. We were not kids anymore and he has a pretty short fuse.
I am not sure why fighting was on my mind today, but it is. I am not feeling particularly violent.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
What is Going On?
The stock market is really confusing and confounding me right about now. The Dow has dropped over 300 points in the past 10 days and bounces up and down every day until if finally closes in the red. The S&P and the NASDAQ pretty much are doing the same.
Also, my company's stock is curtently outperforming the stock of the company we provide support for and that is not normal. Our stock has been running at least 10% less than this stock has. Not that I am upset by this. I would like our stock to hit the mid to upper 40's some time this year.
However, that will most likely change now that I have posted this... :\
Also, my company's stock is curtently outperforming the stock of the company we provide support for and that is not normal. Our stock has been running at least 10% less than this stock has. Not that I am upset by this. I would like our stock to hit the mid to upper 40's some time this year.
However, that will most likely change now that I have posted this... :\
Forgive Us Our Transgressions
This is a deeply personal post, but somehow I feel like God is leading me to publish it. Maybe he is trying to reach someone who reads this blog or maybe he just wants me to think about some things in my past.
Becoming a Christian does not make your life all sunshine and rainbows. Actually, your life gets harder. When you are unsaved, you are owned by our Enemy. He has you and he keeps you blind so that you will not see the Glory that God has nor will you see his unending love. When you become saved, you see the goodness and the bad becomes like a stain...you begin to feel convicted for the unconfessed sins you committed. This is one of the hardest things about becoming a Christian, but it is also one of the most uplifting, freeing feelings you can have.
I became a Christian about 10 years ago, but it was not until about 2003 or so that he started convicting me for being "Contemporary Christian"...one who talks the talk but does not walk the walk. As he was convicting me, I started to slowly make changes in the way I live life. The first thing I did was to stop hiding my faith at work. I am not saying that I witness to everyone who walks in my office I meet in the break room. I just simply started acting like what I believed in. It was scary at first, but now it is no sweat at all.
The next thing I did was removing the stuff out of my life that was causing me to stumble. I stopped watching most R-rated movies, I began to listen to much less secular music, and I cleaned up my rather foul language. While I did not constantly swear, I did have a bit of a bad habit of dropping 4 letter words when I was angry.
I also got rid of all my not-so-legal software (games, OS's, office suites, etc) and replaced them with either licensed or open source (freeware) versions. That story is a long and detailed one I will save for another time.
A Christian's walk is something that is never finished until he finally meets Jesus during Judgement. With that in mind, we have a lot of things we need to do to clean house before we meet him.
The two greatest commandments that our Lord and Savior gave us are:
1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
It is very, VERY difficult to do either of these when you think about it, but if we work on the first, the second will become easier. That is where I am now, working on the second one.
You may (or may not) be aware that I was married once before. It started off bad and got progressively worse until we divorced in 1992. We were both young (21 and 18) and very immature. We had no idea how to act towards each other, no idea how a husband and wife should act. We did not know Christ, nor did we attend church. We were both very lost.
I had considered detailing our relationship, but that is just not fair. We both were at fault. We both made HUGE mistakes, and we both failed. We hurt those around us, those we loved, friends, family, co-workers. Friendships were splintered...some that have never been repaired. Others still show signs of the hurt.
I am writing this because even though my ex-wife hurt me and the kids (one was ours and one was hers), I forgive her. I forgive her for all the pain she caused. I forgive her for the long list of HORRIBLE things she did the entire time we were together (both dating and married).
But is does not stop there. I write this hoping that I can find a way to contact her and ask her to forgive me. While there is no doubt she was a horrible person then (she may have changed, I know I have grown up immensely), she does not deserve all the blame. I never once said she did. I also did many disrespectful things in that relationship. I could list them all if given enough time, but that is just airing dirty laundry. If and when I can get in contact with her, I will let her know my intentions. Will she forgive? Most likely not. She has told me several times (as recently as 5 years ago) that she will never forgive me. I can understand that. Until I became a Christian, I was not willing to forgive her either. It took a lot of prayer to get to that point.
In loving your neighbor, you have to also love your enemies. My ex-wife hates me (or at least she did 5 years ago). She has done many things to make my life less than rosy but I feel obligated to love her as I love myself. Your enemies will try time and time again to assault you, but giving all your pain and resentment to Christ will allow you to focus on other things. I can only hope that my ex-wife accepts Jesus as her personal savior, if she has not already done so. I know that will not erase the past, but it might just allow us to start the healing process.
Becoming a Christian does not make your life all sunshine and rainbows. Actually, your life gets harder. When you are unsaved, you are owned by our Enemy. He has you and he keeps you blind so that you will not see the Glory that God has nor will you see his unending love. When you become saved, you see the goodness and the bad becomes like a stain...you begin to feel convicted for the unconfessed sins you committed. This is one of the hardest things about becoming a Christian, but it is also one of the most uplifting, freeing feelings you can have.
I became a Christian about 10 years ago, but it was not until about 2003 or so that he started convicting me for being "Contemporary Christian"...one who talks the talk but does not walk the walk. As he was convicting me, I started to slowly make changes in the way I live life. The first thing I did was to stop hiding my faith at work. I am not saying that I witness to everyone who walks in my office I meet in the break room. I just simply started acting like what I believed in. It was scary at first, but now it is no sweat at all.
The next thing I did was removing the stuff out of my life that was causing me to stumble. I stopped watching most R-rated movies, I began to listen to much less secular music, and I cleaned up my rather foul language. While I did not constantly swear, I did have a bit of a bad habit of dropping 4 letter words when I was angry.
I also got rid of all my not-so-legal software (games, OS's, office suites, etc) and replaced them with either licensed or open source (freeware) versions. That story is a long and detailed one I will save for another time.
A Christian's walk is something that is never finished until he finally meets Jesus during Judgement. With that in mind, we have a lot of things we need to do to clean house before we meet him.
The two greatest commandments that our Lord and Savior gave us are:
1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
It is very, VERY difficult to do either of these when you think about it, but if we work on the first, the second will become easier. That is where I am now, working on the second one.
You may (or may not) be aware that I was married once before. It started off bad and got progressively worse until we divorced in 1992. We were both young (21 and 18) and very immature. We had no idea how to act towards each other, no idea how a husband and wife should act. We did not know Christ, nor did we attend church. We were both very lost.
I had considered detailing our relationship, but that is just not fair. We both were at fault. We both made HUGE mistakes, and we both failed. We hurt those around us, those we loved, friends, family, co-workers. Friendships were splintered...some that have never been repaired. Others still show signs of the hurt.
I am writing this because even though my ex-wife hurt me and the kids (one was ours and one was hers), I forgive her. I forgive her for all the pain she caused. I forgive her for the long list of HORRIBLE things she did the entire time we were together (both dating and married).
But is does not stop there. I write this hoping that I can find a way to contact her and ask her to forgive me. While there is no doubt she was a horrible person then (she may have changed, I know I have grown up immensely), she does not deserve all the blame. I never once said she did. I also did many disrespectful things in that relationship. I could list them all if given enough time, but that is just airing dirty laundry. If and when I can get in contact with her, I will let her know my intentions. Will she forgive? Most likely not. She has told me several times (as recently as 5 years ago) that she will never forgive me. I can understand that. Until I became a Christian, I was not willing to forgive her either. It took a lot of prayer to get to that point.
In loving your neighbor, you have to also love your enemies. My ex-wife hates me (or at least she did 5 years ago). She has done many things to make my life less than rosy but I feel obligated to love her as I love myself. Your enemies will try time and time again to assault you, but giving all your pain and resentment to Christ will allow you to focus on other things. I can only hope that my ex-wife accepts Jesus as her personal savior, if she has not already done so. I know that will not erase the past, but it might just allow us to start the healing process.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Day Two: The Ticket Deluge Continues...
I realize that as a junior sysadmin I will get the grunt details simply because my skill set in *nix is rather weak. I will be given account creation, deletion, group adds and removes, shell changes, etc because those tickets can encumber the better admins. I also manage our ticket queue and dispatch the "Site Specific" tickets that require the customer be called with 60 minutes of it being submitted. Usually, the workload is such that I can do some project stuff and have it not interfere with my grunt work. The past two days have changed that. I have been getting a lot more account admin stuff than normal...2-3 times as much. I am not complaining...it keeps me out of trouble, and it does make the day go by faster. However, when the TL gives you stuff to do and you get requests from project people across the pond, you find yourself with a lot of things to do in a small amount of time. I guess I could pawn some of this stuff off, but why? It is not hard, just time consuming.
I guess the other reason why I have been busier is the fact I have been going on fact finding missions for some of the other tech's to free up some time for them. I call the customers back and try to decipher the cryptic and often phonetic verbiage in the tickets. Some of them have been quite amusing. One said, "Customer call to inform Internet Explorer is locked in Meth". I always wondered what IE's problem was and now I know...it has a meth addiction.
I have also gotten a few cases back from the help desk that have messages in them akin to, "Customer states issue has still not been resolved". Duh! You know why it has not been resolved? You data entry is HORRIBLE. I had no idea what the customer wanted on some of them and on others I had little if any customer contact info. I have also been getting a LOT of duplicate tickets for the same issues and the help desk is not realizing this. SO I send the cases back with "This is a duplicate, please refer to ticket #1,345,678.
If these were new help desk agents, I could understand, but a couple of these guys have been there 2 years.
I guess the other reason why I have been busier is the fact I have been going on fact finding missions for some of the other tech's to free up some time for them. I call the customers back and try to decipher the cryptic and often phonetic verbiage in the tickets. Some of them have been quite amusing. One said, "Customer call to inform Internet Explorer is locked in Meth". I always wondered what IE's problem was and now I know...it has a meth addiction.
I have also gotten a few cases back from the help desk that have messages in them akin to, "Customer states issue has still not been resolved". Duh! You know why it has not been resolved? You data entry is HORRIBLE. I had no idea what the customer wanted on some of them and on others I had little if any customer contact info. I have also been getting a LOT of duplicate tickets for the same issues and the help desk is not realizing this. SO I send the cases back with "This is a duplicate, please refer to ticket #1,345,678.
If these were new help desk agents, I could understand, but a couple of these guys have been there 2 years.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Men's Retreat
I managed to get a few photos at the men's retreat
The Chapel
Overlooking the camp
The river at camp
The waterpark
Captain SnellingFlorida
Just a few photos of Florida. I always forget to take my camera, so I only have a few to share.
Our small cottage
One of two sunsets we got to see
Our small cottage
One of two sunsets we got to see
John's Pass looking over to Treasure Island
Beach front view!
Clipper ship on the horizon
A Gathering of Brothers
Friday afternoon I left work early to prepare for our annual church men's retreat. This year, they changed the working from retreat to advance, and I think it makes sense, even though it is hard to get used to. We are not supposed to 'retreat', we are supposed to advance and lead. I like that.
Later Friday afternoon after I packed, grabbed some cash, and chatted with my wife, we went to the church to wait for my ride. I was riding with the same two guys I rode with last year, both of them quiet. I was in a chatty mood so I was able to keep the conversation going while we traveled.
The 'advance' was being held at the same location as it was the year before, Glen Rose Lakes Methodist Camp in Glen Rose, TX. It is about a 2 hour drive south west of our church and in a rather pretty area. There is a shallow river running through the camp and a fair amount of things to do (paintball, ropes course, water park, etc) as long as you have paid to do them, be we decided to keep the cost down and allow more men to come that we would skip the frills. We received bunkhouse style lodging (2 nights) with 4 meals and the use of a conference room for $70 per man. Not a bad deal if you do not mind bunk house style lodging.
We arrived later on Friday evening due to a miscommunication on riding arrangements and traffic, not to mention none of us had eaten yet. So our 4:30 start time was pushed to about 6 PM or so. We arrived about 7:30, found our bunkhouse, unloaded the car, made a trip to the latrine, and went for our first group session led by Captain Cary Snelling, a Chaplain in the United States Army. A man of God AND a soldier, he is a powerful speaker. After a 2 hour session and small group, we headed back to the bunkhouse.
I was instructed to go to house 4, since I tend to snore a bit. That was the bunkhouse that housed the guys that tend to snore, so I had no problem. The first nights sleep was good. The bunk (a typical foam mattress pad on a plywood and 2 by 4 frame) was in good condition. We had 3 toilets, sinks, and showers for about 15 men, so as long as I got up at my normal time, I should be able to get a shower and brush my teeth before chow and the morning group sessions.
The shower had plenty of hot water and was pretty clean, much cleaner than I expected. I tend to rise early when I travel or am away from my wife, so I had about 40 minutes to kill before they opened the mess hall for coffee. Meals were at specific times during the day (breakfast was 2 hours later than I was used to, but I managed). A few of us met for coffee both mornings and that was quite nice. Most of the men are near may age, though some are older and a few younger.
The first session was immediately after chow and lasted for a couple of hours. We had about 1 hour free until lunch, so I just wandered the camp. It was bustling with some college kids who were on a leadership outing. It was coed, but the sleep arrangements were obviously separated. I thought the young women were dressed a bit to risque for a church camp (tight, short shorts, bikini tops, etc) but that is just my opinion. I could be distracting to a bunch of men in search of spiritual healing.
After chow I went to the gym and got spanked in air hockey (which surprised me...I am a decent air hockey player) and watched the guy who defeated me defeat 2 other guys in short time. I do not know if he plays much, but he showed me that he is not to be take lightly.
After my defeat, I took a younger, newer BiC (Brother in Christ) who had been beaten in air hockey as well, on a hike up a rocky cliff that overlooked the camp. At the end of the trail is a bonfire pit where people can meet, have a fire (safely) and get down to some serious spiritual healing. We walked up during the heat of the day and our bottled water was soon gone. It is not a long hike, maybe 20 minutes or so, but it is a take strenuous and has a couple of places that the footing is very hazardous. You hike at your own risk.
The view from the top of the cliff is wonderful and as soon as I get some time I will post the photos I took (well, some of them at least). It has a great view of the sunset at the proper time and I was looking forward to that.
The hike starts with a 200 meter trek down the shallow river that is behind the camp. Once you hike down to the proper place, then cross it (it is very shallow) and co up a six foot ledge to the path. Once on the path it is easy to follow the path, but not so easy to traverse it. We had many who had to take the back way up via pickup truck.
The hike down would be impossible at night without hurting yourself. It is required that anyone who goes up to do a bonfire MUST come back via the road. It is a twisty narrow patch that is strewn with boulders, exposed roots, and fallen trees. Tricky during the day and very dangerous at night.
After hiking up and back, I was a bit tired, so I grabbed some shut-eye. While I did not mean to, I ended up sleeping for close to 2 hours, getting up just in time for chow. I walked over to the chow hall and joined my BiC's for our evening meal. While not fantastic, the meal was palatable. Camp food is seldom good but it is usually edible. This was better than edible, bit not quite 'good'.
After chow we had another group session, this one led by a Nigerian Bishop. The sermon was right on target, and though his accent kept many of the newer BiC's from understanding every word, the message was loud and clear...even when coming from a quiet Nigerian man. After that we began the official hike to the cross for the gathering of men at the bonfire. While it was not dark yet, the sun was setting and we had just enough time to safely make it along the trail up the cliff before the fire was lit.
We spent about 2 hours at the top of the cliff around the bonfire laughing and crying, building each other up, and praying for those who were in pain, spiritual and physical. We shared and we listened and learned new things about our BiC's, both old and new that we never knew until that night. While some of the things you learn might surprise you, you are seldom worried by them. Some of these men (myself included) have been through Hell and have made it back by the Grace of God and the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. I am getting misty eyed at this moment thinking about the trials some of these men have dealt with.
After the bonfire we loaded into trucks and took the 'easy' way down. It is almost as long to get there by truck as it is to walk, and the route is just as difficult for a truck as the other way is for people. When we made it to the river crossing point, we were stopped by another vehicle coming up as we were coming down. The only place wide enough to allow us both to pass was in the river itself. While it was a bit unnerving to do at night, it was mostly safe. The river is very shallow (less than a foot) and the bottom is solid stone...no mud or sand to get mired down in.
After returning to the camp, we decided that ice cream was in order, as if all the 'man food' we consumed over the course of the past 24 hours was not enough. We all piled BACK into the trucks and headed into Glen Rose towards the Dairy Queen in search if frozen treats.
We arrived at DQ 20 minutes before closing and 25+ Christian men that comprised the caravan began placing orders. We piled in the rear of the establishment and began to cut up, having a good time until our goodies arrived. The poor server was new and look genuinely frightened of us, or at least a few of us. One of the guys there stated that he heard a quote that said something along the lines of, "Men are just one weekend away from dancing naked around a bonfire and placing dead animal heads on the end of spears". I think was correct. Amazing how uncouth a group of men can become when they are on an outing away from the only human on the planet who is able to keep them under control...Their wife!
While no naked dancing took place (THANK YOU JESUS!) I did experience 'raw manliness' in action. While it can be funny to witness, I am glad these things only take place once a year. I am not sure I could handle more than that!
While I am poking fun at this, the weekend was serious to me in the fact that God has convicted me of some of my behavior as a man. God commands us (as men) to be leaders and I have been shirking in that duty lately. He also commands us to nurture and nourish our wives. That point really hurt, because I have not been doing that. Needless to say I spent a good deal of time praying regarding this matter.
Sunday I woke up did my normal routine (shower, brush teeth, morning walk, etc) and had coffee with my brothers. Once the chow hall opened we ate and went back to pack. After packing we had our last session, which was more of a sermon, but it was very welcome nonetheless. When the sermon was over we all chatted and said our good-byes, loaded into the vehicles we were assigned and headed home.
I drove back with the guy who beat me at air hockey. I did not know this but he hates driving by himself. Had I known this earlier, I would have driven down with him since he had to drive down by himself. I do not like to see people travel by themselves if I can help it.
We had a good productive talk on the way back and I thing we both learned a few things. He dropped me off at my house and I said good-bye, gave him a hug and returned to my world...
Coming home to my dogs was interesting and rewarding. I let them out to use the bathroom, but they were more interested in me, so I let them back in. It was hot so I knew leaving them out very long was dangerous. I unpacked and tidied a few things before logging on to my PC and checking my mail and doing a few bills. Once that was done I updated www.mistergeek.com and finished watching 'Aeon Flux', as I previously blogged. Big waste of time.
Later that evening, my wife and I had a light dinner and watched 'The New World'. I did not like it but my wife seemed to enjoy it, so I sat there and watched, holding my wife's hand while she explained it to me. That is a first!
After watching an episode of Babylon 5, I went to bed. That was as much TV as could handle for one day. I normally do not watch much, but I only have 10 episodes left of the 5th season of B5 left to watch and then I can start back up on Farscape. I had 'Aeon Flux' and 'The New World' last week but never got a chance to finish AF, even though it is only 90 minutes long. My wife and I never had enough time together to watch TNW,so we shelved it until the summer re-runs started. Now that no more original episodes are going to be aired (outside the last 2 epi's of 24 tonight), I can catch up on all my sci-fi!
Later Friday afternoon after I packed, grabbed some cash, and chatted with my wife, we went to the church to wait for my ride. I was riding with the same two guys I rode with last year, both of them quiet. I was in a chatty mood so I was able to keep the conversation going while we traveled.
The 'advance' was being held at the same location as it was the year before, Glen Rose Lakes Methodist Camp in Glen Rose, TX. It is about a 2 hour drive south west of our church and in a rather pretty area. There is a shallow river running through the camp and a fair amount of things to do (paintball, ropes course, water park, etc) as long as you have paid to do them, be we decided to keep the cost down and allow more men to come that we would skip the frills. We received bunkhouse style lodging (2 nights) with 4 meals and the use of a conference room for $70 per man. Not a bad deal if you do not mind bunk house style lodging.
We arrived later on Friday evening due to a miscommunication on riding arrangements and traffic, not to mention none of us had eaten yet. So our 4:30 start time was pushed to about 6 PM or so. We arrived about 7:30, found our bunkhouse, unloaded the car, made a trip to the latrine, and went for our first group session led by Captain Cary Snelling, a Chaplain in the United States Army. A man of God AND a soldier, he is a powerful speaker. After a 2 hour session and small group, we headed back to the bunkhouse.
I was instructed to go to house 4, since I tend to snore a bit. That was the bunkhouse that housed the guys that tend to snore, so I had no problem. The first nights sleep was good. The bunk (a typical foam mattress pad on a plywood and 2 by 4 frame) was in good condition. We had 3 toilets, sinks, and showers for about 15 men, so as long as I got up at my normal time, I should be able to get a shower and brush my teeth before chow and the morning group sessions.
The shower had plenty of hot water and was pretty clean, much cleaner than I expected. I tend to rise early when I travel or am away from my wife, so I had about 40 minutes to kill before they opened the mess hall for coffee. Meals were at specific times during the day (breakfast was 2 hours later than I was used to, but I managed). A few of us met for coffee both mornings and that was quite nice. Most of the men are near may age, though some are older and a few younger.
The first session was immediately after chow and lasted for a couple of hours. We had about 1 hour free until lunch, so I just wandered the camp. It was bustling with some college kids who were on a leadership outing. It was coed, but the sleep arrangements were obviously separated. I thought the young women were dressed a bit to risque for a church camp (tight, short shorts, bikini tops, etc) but that is just my opinion. I could be distracting to a bunch of men in search of spiritual healing.
After chow I went to the gym and got spanked in air hockey (which surprised me...I am a decent air hockey player) and watched the guy who defeated me defeat 2 other guys in short time. I do not know if he plays much, but he showed me that he is not to be take lightly.
After my defeat, I took a younger, newer BiC (Brother in Christ) who had been beaten in air hockey as well, on a hike up a rocky cliff that overlooked the camp. At the end of the trail is a bonfire pit where people can meet, have a fire (safely) and get down to some serious spiritual healing. We walked up during the heat of the day and our bottled water was soon gone. It is not a long hike, maybe 20 minutes or so, but it is a take strenuous and has a couple of places that the footing is very hazardous. You hike at your own risk.
The view from the top of the cliff is wonderful and as soon as I get some time I will post the photos I took (well, some of them at least). It has a great view of the sunset at the proper time and I was looking forward to that.
The hike starts with a 200 meter trek down the shallow river that is behind the camp. Once you hike down to the proper place, then cross it (it is very shallow) and co up a six foot ledge to the path. Once on the path it is easy to follow the path, but not so easy to traverse it. We had many who had to take the back way up via pickup truck.
The hike down would be impossible at night without hurting yourself. It is required that anyone who goes up to do a bonfire MUST come back via the road. It is a twisty narrow patch that is strewn with boulders, exposed roots, and fallen trees. Tricky during the day and very dangerous at night.
After hiking up and back, I was a bit tired, so I grabbed some shut-eye. While I did not mean to, I ended up sleeping for close to 2 hours, getting up just in time for chow. I walked over to the chow hall and joined my BiC's for our evening meal. While not fantastic, the meal was palatable. Camp food is seldom good but it is usually edible. This was better than edible, bit not quite 'good'.
After chow we had another group session, this one led by a Nigerian Bishop. The sermon was right on target, and though his accent kept many of the newer BiC's from understanding every word, the message was loud and clear...even when coming from a quiet Nigerian man. After that we began the official hike to the cross for the gathering of men at the bonfire. While it was not dark yet, the sun was setting and we had just enough time to safely make it along the trail up the cliff before the fire was lit.
We spent about 2 hours at the top of the cliff around the bonfire laughing and crying, building each other up, and praying for those who were in pain, spiritual and physical. We shared and we listened and learned new things about our BiC's, both old and new that we never knew until that night. While some of the things you learn might surprise you, you are seldom worried by them. Some of these men (myself included) have been through Hell and have made it back by the Grace of God and the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. I am getting misty eyed at this moment thinking about the trials some of these men have dealt with.
After the bonfire we loaded into trucks and took the 'easy' way down. It is almost as long to get there by truck as it is to walk, and the route is just as difficult for a truck as the other way is for people. When we made it to the river crossing point, we were stopped by another vehicle coming up as we were coming down. The only place wide enough to allow us both to pass was in the river itself. While it was a bit unnerving to do at night, it was mostly safe. The river is very shallow (less than a foot) and the bottom is solid stone...no mud or sand to get mired down in.
After returning to the camp, we decided that ice cream was in order, as if all the 'man food' we consumed over the course of the past 24 hours was not enough. We all piled BACK into the trucks and headed into Glen Rose towards the Dairy Queen in search if frozen treats.
We arrived at DQ 20 minutes before closing and 25+ Christian men that comprised the caravan began placing orders. We piled in the rear of the establishment and began to cut up, having a good time until our goodies arrived. The poor server was new and look genuinely frightened of us, or at least a few of us. One of the guys there stated that he heard a quote that said something along the lines of, "Men are just one weekend away from dancing naked around a bonfire and placing dead animal heads on the end of spears". I think was correct. Amazing how uncouth a group of men can become when they are on an outing away from the only human on the planet who is able to keep them under control...Their wife!
While no naked dancing took place (THANK YOU JESUS!) I did experience 'raw manliness' in action. While it can be funny to witness, I am glad these things only take place once a year. I am not sure I could handle more than that!
While I am poking fun at this, the weekend was serious to me in the fact that God has convicted me of some of my behavior as a man. God commands us (as men) to be leaders and I have been shirking in that duty lately. He also commands us to nurture and nourish our wives. That point really hurt, because I have not been doing that. Needless to say I spent a good deal of time praying regarding this matter.
Sunday I woke up did my normal routine (shower, brush teeth, morning walk, etc) and had coffee with my brothers. Once the chow hall opened we ate and went back to pack. After packing we had our last session, which was more of a sermon, but it was very welcome nonetheless. When the sermon was over we all chatted and said our good-byes, loaded into the vehicles we were assigned and headed home.
I drove back with the guy who beat me at air hockey. I did not know this but he hates driving by himself. Had I known this earlier, I would have driven down with him since he had to drive down by himself. I do not like to see people travel by themselves if I can help it.
We had a good productive talk on the way back and I thing we both learned a few things. He dropped me off at my house and I said good-bye, gave him a hug and returned to my world...
Coming home to my dogs was interesting and rewarding. I let them out to use the bathroom, but they were more interested in me, so I let them back in. It was hot so I knew leaving them out very long was dangerous. I unpacked and tidied a few things before logging on to my PC and checking my mail and doing a few bills. Once that was done I updated www.mistergeek.com and finished watching 'Aeon Flux', as I previously blogged. Big waste of time.
Later that evening, my wife and I had a light dinner and watched 'The New World'. I did not like it but my wife seemed to enjoy it, so I sat there and watched, holding my wife's hand while she explained it to me. That is a first!
After watching an episode of Babylon 5, I went to bed. That was as much TV as could handle for one day. I normally do not watch much, but I only have 10 episodes left of the 5th season of B5 left to watch and then I can start back up on Farscape. I had 'Aeon Flux' and 'The New World' last week but never got a chance to finish AF, even though it is only 90 minutes long. My wife and I never had enough time together to watch TNW,so we shelved it until the summer re-runs started. Now that no more original episodes are going to be aired (outside the last 2 epi's of 24 tonight), I can catch up on all my sci-fi!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Aeon Sucks
I mean...Aeon Flux. The movie was pretty bad over all. Glad I did not waste my money at the theater.
While the story is not bad, and Charlize Theron did an OK job, the overall effect was tedious and boring. A very long 90 minutes!
I just got back from our church men's retreat and I will give a full update tomorrow. I am tired and need my sleep! In the mean time, check out the web site of our guest speaker, Captain Cary Snelling.
While the story is not bad, and Charlize Theron did an OK job, the overall effect was tedious and boring. A very long 90 minutes!
I just got back from our church men's retreat and I will give a full update tomorrow. I am tired and need my sleep! In the mean time, check out the web site of our guest speaker, Captain Cary Snelling.
Friday, May 19, 2006
All Friday's Need to be Like This, Pain Sucks, and a Message From a Soldier
I am sitting at work in shorts (nice walking shorts) at 10:45 AM on a Friday morning. I will be leaving in about an hour (yea...working only a half day) so I can attend the Men's Retreat this weekend. The event is for our church and if it is anything like last year, it will be fun.
The only drawback I can think of is my health. I still am having that "twinge" many times a day (but it is not constant, thankfully!) and it is beginning to bother/worry me. I have talked to many people about it and most of them think it is a nerve issue, since the pain does not always occur doing the same movement. I can bend a certain way one day and hurt and do the same thing the next and not hurt. I can twist to the left and hurt and then twist to the right and not hurt, but the later that day the pain occurs when the opposite movement is made. Weird.
I got a text message from our son last night / this morning and he is going on his first convoy as the drive of a big truck. He also gets to take his turn at the .50 cal machine guns. Lucky kid ;) . He has sounded very positive when we talk to him. He called us three times while we were on vacation to check in. While the reception at the beach was bad, it was nice to chat with our only son.
It has been steady, but not overly busy at work, although I just *know* several tickets are going to come in this afternoon for me. I know this because I sent one back to the help desk that should have been *six* separate tickets and they were all lumped into one. Not only would I not get credit for the work I did, one person could hold up the closing of six issues. The help desk has been very bad about these sorts of things lately. So when the help desk gets done making one into six, I will have six tickets to work first thing Monday morning. Joy. Well, that is not bad, really. I am very much a junior admin (heck, infant is more like it) who is learning and the cases I take are pretty basic admin things (adduser, rmuser, modify groups, etc). I have done some more advanced stuff under a watchful eye of my TL, but those are not very common.
Feh, my TL just came in and told me the local site mgr for the NC office is mad because I closed two cases he had open. The reason I closed them without fixing them? They were duplicates of two other cases that were assigned to the local site admin. He was already working them. Anyhoo, the LSM is having a meeting with my boss and TL on this. I told my TL that I stand by my decision and it is (in my opinion) illogical to keep 4 tickets open when two is one too many. He agrees, but you know how customers are, they end up being right most of the time, whether they are or not :)
The only drawback I can think of is my health. I still am having that "twinge" many times a day (but it is not constant, thankfully!) and it is beginning to bother/worry me. I have talked to many people about it and most of them think it is a nerve issue, since the pain does not always occur doing the same movement. I can bend a certain way one day and hurt and do the same thing the next and not hurt. I can twist to the left and hurt and then twist to the right and not hurt, but the later that day the pain occurs when the opposite movement is made. Weird.
I got a text message from our son last night / this morning and he is going on his first convoy as the drive of a big truck. He also gets to take his turn at the .50 cal machine guns. Lucky kid ;) . He has sounded very positive when we talk to him. He called us three times while we were on vacation to check in. While the reception at the beach was bad, it was nice to chat with our only son.
It has been steady, but not overly busy at work, although I just *know* several tickets are going to come in this afternoon for me. I know this because I sent one back to the help desk that should have been *six* separate tickets and they were all lumped into one. Not only would I not get credit for the work I did, one person could hold up the closing of six issues. The help desk has been very bad about these sorts of things lately. So when the help desk gets done making one into six, I will have six tickets to work first thing Monday morning. Joy. Well, that is not bad, really. I am very much a junior admin (heck, infant is more like it) who is learning and the cases I take are pretty basic admin things (adduser, rmuser, modify groups, etc). I have done some more advanced stuff under a watchful eye of my TL, but those are not very common.
Feh, my TL just came in and told me the local site mgr for the NC office is mad because I closed two cases he had open. The reason I closed them without fixing them? They were duplicates of two other cases that were assigned to the local site admin. He was already working them. Anyhoo, the LSM is having a meeting with my boss and TL on this. I told my TL that I stand by my decision and it is (in my opinion) illogical to keep 4 tickets open when two is one too many. He agrees, but you know how customers are, they end up being right most of the time, whether they are or not :)
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Anyone Know What the Left Hand is Doing?
I received and e-mail a few days ago from a company looking for a Help Desk Supervisor. Since I really enjoyed my years doing that function, I responded to the mail. The composer of the e-mail Mel* called me the following day and we had a very good chat. He gave me the low down on the job, which was L1 and L2 support for a government agency with a team of 7-12 people. I would be working for a major IT company who has been outsourced to this contract. While is sounded like a challenging role, it also appeared to be a good move for me. "Mel" told me he would set me up with a phone interview with the manager and a face to face interview would follow. The phone interview was set up and I chatted with two gentlemen from NY (one was with the IT company and the other was with a 3rd party they contract with). "Mel", who set this up, was on the west coast, and was on the call.
The first red flag was that the call to me was 15 minutes late...a definate red flag. Then, the person who was supposed to join the call (the NOC Mgr), was not able to attend the call...red flag #2. They apologized for the delay and I forgave them...we all have work to do. They did the usual "Why do you want to leave" type of questions and a few of my qualifications to do the job. They told me it was a Monday thru Friday, 8-5 job for the most part and told me a bit more about the environment. It was not a badly managed office, in their opinions, but they had a lot of trouble with personal conflicts. Ok, no biggie, I can work with almost anyone, especially if I am one that can set some policies in place. However, the #2 NY guy (who was a TL, but not on the same team...weird) told me the job was more like a "player/coach" role. I would be expected to do desktop support, phone support, AND run the team. To make matters more interesting, there would be two TL's for the same team and it is just a 7 AM to 6 PM desk...not 24 hours where 2 TL's may be needed...red flags 3 and 4.
They asked me to do a face to face interview on Tuesday and I agreed, but I am most likely going to cancel it. "Mel" and the Ny guys were not on the same page and the job I was told about by "Mel" is nothing like what was told to me by the NY duo. Does the right hand know what the left is doing?
I am not worried about this at all. I have been on a few phone interviews that did not go well, and since I am happy where I am now and it is paying the bills, I can afford to be picky :-) .
On the work front, I finally finished installing all the monitoring software on the remote servers. If I was talented with scripts, I would have done so, but by the time I would have made and tested it, I could have had all the files FTP'd to the servers, unzipped and installed. There were only 13 servers at this one location...all Linux except one and the Linux installs were very painless.
The stock market took a pounding yesterday, but the company stock is enjoying some gains. I am sure my 401k and my IRA both lost a lot yesterday, but they were riding on all time highs, so I am not very upset. The market does that sometimes. That is why I have mutual funds!
*Not his real name
The first red flag was that the call to me was 15 minutes late...a definate red flag. Then, the person who was supposed to join the call (the NOC Mgr), was not able to attend the call...red flag #2. They apologized for the delay and I forgave them...we all have work to do. They did the usual "Why do you want to leave" type of questions and a few of my qualifications to do the job. They told me it was a Monday thru Friday, 8-5 job for the most part and told me a bit more about the environment. It was not a badly managed office, in their opinions, but they had a lot of trouble with personal conflicts. Ok, no biggie, I can work with almost anyone, especially if I am one that can set some policies in place. However, the #2 NY guy (who was a TL, but not on the same team...weird) told me the job was more like a "player/coach" role. I would be expected to do desktop support, phone support, AND run the team. To make matters more interesting, there would be two TL's for the same team and it is just a 7 AM to 6 PM desk...not 24 hours where 2 TL's may be needed...red flags 3 and 4.
They asked me to do a face to face interview on Tuesday and I agreed, but I am most likely going to cancel it. "Mel" and the Ny guys were not on the same page and the job I was told about by "Mel" is nothing like what was told to me by the NY duo. Does the right hand know what the left is doing?
I am not worried about this at all. I have been on a few phone interviews that did not go well, and since I am happy where I am now and it is paying the bills, I can afford to be picky :-) .
On the work front, I finally finished installing all the monitoring software on the remote servers. If I was talented with scripts, I would have done so, but by the time I would have made and tested it, I could have had all the files FTP'd to the servers, unzipped and installed. There were only 13 servers at this one location...all Linux except one and the Linux installs were very painless.
The stock market took a pounding yesterday, but the company stock is enjoying some gains. I am sure my 401k and my IRA both lost a lot yesterday, but they were riding on all time highs, so I am not very upset. The market does that sometimes. That is why I have mutual funds!
*Not his real name
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Life's a Beach, Part III
Saturday arrived a lot sooner than I expected. We had hoped to leave by 8 AM, so we got up at 5 to finish packing, load the van, and do our normal routine. We wanted to get one last walk on the beach (we did...a short one) so we could have that in our mind as we drove back.
We had gotten gas the day before, so we had a mostly full tank to drive on. We finally left about 10:00 or so, dropped off the keys at the rental office, bought some fresh OJ and oranges, and hit the road. My wife always drives first. I cat nap for an hour or so, read, and chat with her. After about 4 hours, she is ready (normally) to hand over driving duties to me. That is the normal scheme of things when we travel together.
The drive back on day one went pretty quickly. We managed to get to Mobile, Alabama at about 6 PM local time. We unloaded only what we needed, walked and watered the dogs, and headed to O'Charlie's for dinner. Since we had been spending a bit more money on this trip than I had hoped, we opted for burgers for dinner. I have to admit that both me and my wife enjoyed those burgers very much. They may have been the best burgers we have had in months. They were big and juicy and did not need any mayo or mustard to give them life. We were in and out quickly.
O'Charlie's was just two doors down from the Drury Inn where we stayed, so we walked. We got the room we requested and enjoy a good nights sleep after I stretched out my legs and back. One thing I noticed is that I cannot deal with long trips anymore. My legs and back get very tight and sore from sitting that many hours.
I stayed up until about 11:30 watching the World's Strongest Man competition. They had some great events and the winner for 2005 has won it 3 years in a row. He is a Polish power lifter who is HUGE. Second place went to a very cocky American who was tiny compared to the winner, but he was very strong none the less.
We got up the next morning at 6 AM and started our routine as usual. I grabbed some breakfast from the lobby (sausage biscuits, juice, yogurt, fruit, and a danish) and took my meds. I was feeling pretty good, but I knew I needed to stretch some more before we left. By the time I had returned, my wife was out of the shower and she went and grabbed herself something. I stretched while she was gone.
When she returned, I started loading the van and then gave the dogs one last chance to use the bathroom. Both did what they needed to do so we checked out and hit the road.
We only had one planned stop and that was to get gas. The cheapest we found it where we were was $2.78 at Sam's, but it was closed and would not open for 30 minutes. The next best was $2.83 at a Shell station. I filled up, scraped the huge amount of dead bugs from our windshield, and continued on home.
The pit stops on the way back were pretty rare, mostly just for gas. My wife got hungry in the afternoon so we stopped for gas, walked and watered the dogs and grabbed some shrimp sandwiches and fries at "Kyle's Cajun Kitchen" somewhere between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. The food was rather tasty but the best part was listening to the young lady at the counter take our order. She was a Cajun! My wife and I loved her accent. I guess we could have listened to her chat about anything. She was super polite and made sure we had all we needed before we hit the road.
As per routine, my wife drove 3-4 hours and I finished the journey home. We got home at 7:30 PM local time and immediately let the dogs run. They enjoyed being free from the dog kennels and really let us know it by running back and forth and acting silly for several minutes. We unlocked and inspected the house (no damage from storms or vandalism) and got the dogs food ready so they could finally eat. While they were eating I went and grabbed the mail that was in our box from Saturday (We had a neighbor pick up the mail the rest of the week) and gave it a quick glance. Nothing was interesting, so I began unloading the van.
My wife normally will begin to wash clothes, unpack, etc the minute we get back, but this time I convinced her to take it easy. Law and Order was coming on and I wanted her to rest a bit. I took the dogs for a walk (one at a time) after their food had settled and I began to unpack my clothes. I also took the time to put away the electronics (camera, CD player and PDA's...no laptop this time!) so they would not get misplaced or damaged.
As I was looking around the house, one of the first things I noticed was how high the grass had gotten since we left. I cut it the day before we went on vacation and turned off the sprinklers (to slow the growth some...besides, rain was in the forecast in Texas while we were gone) but it still was very high. It looked like Monday and Tuesday evening would be busy for me.
All in all it was a very relaxing vacation. I only wished we had one more day off before going back to work, but it turned out ok. I was busy catching up on work and personal e-mail for 2 days, not to mention a ton of other work, but it was only 2 days and I am almost 100% caught up at work and mostly caught up at home.
I will have some pics posted in the near future. Then I should be back to rambling ...
We had gotten gas the day before, so we had a mostly full tank to drive on. We finally left about 10:00 or so, dropped off the keys at the rental office, bought some fresh OJ and oranges, and hit the road. My wife always drives first. I cat nap for an hour or so, read, and chat with her. After about 4 hours, she is ready (normally) to hand over driving duties to me. That is the normal scheme of things when we travel together.
The drive back on day one went pretty quickly. We managed to get to Mobile, Alabama at about 6 PM local time. We unloaded only what we needed, walked and watered the dogs, and headed to O'Charlie's for dinner. Since we had been spending a bit more money on this trip than I had hoped, we opted for burgers for dinner. I have to admit that both me and my wife enjoyed those burgers very much. They may have been the best burgers we have had in months. They were big and juicy and did not need any mayo or mustard to give them life. We were in and out quickly.
O'Charlie's was just two doors down from the Drury Inn where we stayed, so we walked. We got the room we requested and enjoy a good nights sleep after I stretched out my legs and back. One thing I noticed is that I cannot deal with long trips anymore. My legs and back get very tight and sore from sitting that many hours.
I stayed up until about 11:30 watching the World's Strongest Man competition. They had some great events and the winner for 2005 has won it 3 years in a row. He is a Polish power lifter who is HUGE. Second place went to a very cocky American who was tiny compared to the winner, but he was very strong none the less.
We got up the next morning at 6 AM and started our routine as usual. I grabbed some breakfast from the lobby (sausage biscuits, juice, yogurt, fruit, and a danish) and took my meds. I was feeling pretty good, but I knew I needed to stretch some more before we left. By the time I had returned, my wife was out of the shower and she went and grabbed herself something. I stretched while she was gone.
When she returned, I started loading the van and then gave the dogs one last chance to use the bathroom. Both did what they needed to do so we checked out and hit the road.
We only had one planned stop and that was to get gas. The cheapest we found it where we were was $2.78 at Sam's, but it was closed and would not open for 30 minutes. The next best was $2.83 at a Shell station. I filled up, scraped the huge amount of dead bugs from our windshield, and continued on home.
The pit stops on the way back were pretty rare, mostly just for gas. My wife got hungry in the afternoon so we stopped for gas, walked and watered the dogs and grabbed some shrimp sandwiches and fries at "Kyle's Cajun Kitchen" somewhere between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. The food was rather tasty but the best part was listening to the young lady at the counter take our order. She was a Cajun! My wife and I loved her accent. I guess we could have listened to her chat about anything. She was super polite and made sure we had all we needed before we hit the road.
As per routine, my wife drove 3-4 hours and I finished the journey home. We got home at 7:30 PM local time and immediately let the dogs run. They enjoyed being free from the dog kennels and really let us know it by running back and forth and acting silly for several minutes. We unlocked and inspected the house (no damage from storms or vandalism) and got the dogs food ready so they could finally eat. While they were eating I went and grabbed the mail that was in our box from Saturday (We had a neighbor pick up the mail the rest of the week) and gave it a quick glance. Nothing was interesting, so I began unloading the van.
My wife normally will begin to wash clothes, unpack, etc the minute we get back, but this time I convinced her to take it easy. Law and Order was coming on and I wanted her to rest a bit. I took the dogs for a walk (one at a time) after their food had settled and I began to unpack my clothes. I also took the time to put away the electronics (camera, CD player and PDA's...no laptop this time!) so they would not get misplaced or damaged.
As I was looking around the house, one of the first things I noticed was how high the grass had gotten since we left. I cut it the day before we went on vacation and turned off the sprinklers (to slow the growth some...besides, rain was in the forecast in Texas while we were gone) but it still was very high. It looked like Monday and Tuesday evening would be busy for me.
All in all it was a very relaxing vacation. I only wished we had one more day off before going back to work, but it turned out ok. I was busy catching up on work and personal e-mail for 2 days, not to mention a ton of other work, but it was only 2 days and I am almost 100% caught up at work and mostly caught up at home.
I will have some pics posted in the near future. Then I should be back to rambling ...
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Life's a Beach, Part II
Tuesday was another lazy day which started like the others with the normal morning ritual. We added a morning devotional (Drs Les and Leslie Parrot's 'Love Talk") to the routine and managed to do a chapter most every morning. We spent most of our time just relaxing, talking, and walking the beach the next few days.
That evening, we met up with *Yvette and went to St, Petersburg, or "St. Pete's" as it is known by the locals. We had dinner at "The Pier" (a local shopping mall over the ocean) and admired the view but missing the sunset again. It was cool, windy and a tad cloudy but pleasant none the less. We had fish at Cha Cha Coconuts, but it was not as nice as I would have hoped. It was OK, but just average. The waiter was a stoner looking guy who did not seem to care about offering good service, so his tip was not as big as I normally would have given.
After dinner, we wandered The Pier a bit and took in the view. "Yvette" took a photo of me and my wife with the ocean as a backdrop and we headed out. On the way back to the van, my wife asked "Yvette" if there was anything interesting close by. "Yvette" informed us that the shops near by catered to the more affluent of the population and we could wander around town for a while if we wanted. We had not wandered very long when "Yvette" spotted a Ben and Jerry's. The look on her face told me all I needed to know...she was in the mood for ice cream.
We went in and sampled the new Baklava flavored ice cream but decided it was not as tasty as we had hoped so my wife got a cheesecake milkshake and "Yvette" and I got banana rum ice cream cups. The banana rum ice cream tasted like Bananas Foster and I made short work of it while we walked. We gravitated towards the soulful sound of a lone trumpet being played in a court yard outside a hotel. The musician was an older black man with a tip jar playing snippits of old favorites. My wife took a couple of dollars and placed them in the cup and we sat on the bench and listened for a few minutes while we watched people enter and leave the court yard.
When the ice cream and music were gone, we walked back to the van. We started to head back and realized we had made a wrong turn. "Yvette" had a map so I made good use of it. The streets in down town St Pete are all numbered, streets and avenues, north and south with the same numbers so you have to be careful when using a map. After a couple of missed turns, we found our way back.
When we got home we took the dogs for the nightly walk and settled in with some TV. It was not long before we both started dozing on the couch, so we headed off to brush our teeth and hit the hay.
The next morning was more of the same routine. We had planned to go to Busch Gardens on Wednesday, but the forecast was calling for scattered thunderstorms and it was cloudy so we stayed home. No need to waste parking fees if it rained at BG. So since it was not going to be a nice day for the park, we spent the next 2 days puttering around the cottage and dealing with our biggest dog who had gotten an irritated paw and required a trip to the local vet and some meds. That added about $100 more to our vacation cost than I had expected, but we were still OK on funds. I cooked dinner on the grill...chicken with a spicy orange sauce. It was great and we had enough for lunch the next day.
Thursday was a down day, the only real excitement was at dinner. We walked to "PJ's" and tried to enjoy an overcooked dinner of shrimp, scallops, and Mahi-Mahi. Since dinner was not all that great, we ordered dessert (I had the Mississippi Mud Pie and my wife had the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake) and enjoyed that. Right after I finished my dessert, I spilled my drink all over me, soaking my entire left side. I was SOAKED. I cleaned up as best as I could, paid the bill and walked home, sticky. I got back and cleaned up while my wife walked the dogs. Later we laughed about it and watched some TV before settling in fo the night.
Friday arrived and we decided we were going back to Busch Gardens. Thursday had been very overcast but Friday was shaping up to be a cool comfortable and sunny day. The started with a bit of excitement as we managed to lock ourselves out of the cottage at 5:30 AM. The cottage had locks on it that automatically locked unless you turned the lock from the inside first. We are not used to that so I started carrying the key with me wherever I went. That morning, my wife went out to let the dogs use the bathroom and she closed the door behind her. She did that a lot and since she did not carry a key, I had to let her back in. Well, After she went out side, I realized I was not really sleepy, so I put on a shirt and shorts and went outside. I failed to grab the key before I pulled the door shut and locked us both out of the cottage. Even though it was a run down little cabin, they had put new windows wtih deadbolt locks on them so getting in via a window was not going to happen. The only real way in was the door I locked behind me. The side door was deadbolted from the inside and it was rather secure.
There was a pane of glass that was lose that I thought I might be able to remove, but since I did not have any tools (the van was locked as well) that was not going to happen, either. There was a gap in the door frame that looked like it had been jimmied in the past (I am sure we were not the only people to get locked out of that cottage), so I thought I would give it at try. Now if you have ever been locked out of your house that has simple door locks, you are probably aware that the old style laminated driver's license works very well to get in between the door jamb. Well, I did not have my wallet with me and there was NOTHING I could find to get in. I was afraid I was going to have to ask the police or fire department to help me. Then my wife and I managed to break a plastic Yoplait yogurt container open (from the trash) until it was one long flat piece of flexible plastic. While it was not the perfect thing to use, I was able to get back in the cottage after about 20 minutes of praying and jimmying. What a way to start the day!
The rest of ourl morning routine took much longer on Friday than it normally did (duh). We did not get to the park until 3 PM and it closed at 7 PM. That gave us only 4 hours to take pics and finish up riding a few of our favorite rides. When we arrived, we found a good parking place but the park was packed with kids who were out of school. Lines were long (we waited over an hour to ride the Rhino Rally) and some of the rides were having problems (Montu shut down for a while). We did manage to ride it after a wait of about 40 minutes. I took as many pictures as I could and then we headed out.
The drive home was uneventful. We were supposed to meet up with "Yvette" after she got off work at 8 PM. We had not eaten and 8 PM is late for us to eat, but we love "Yvette" so we waited for her. She had a last minute customer so she was a few minutes late getting to Crabby Bills for dinner. We chatted and waited for our food and listened as a table of drunks laughed very loudly and made silly comments, most of which I could not understand. Our food came and it was as good as we had expected it would be. I had another blackened Mahi-Mahi sandwich (I could live on those) and my wife ordered clam chowder and grilled shrimp. "Yvette" ordered grilled scallops and we all three enjoyed chatting and eating.
After dinner, we took a walk on the beach. It was dark, but the moon was full. The full moon prompted "Yvette" to tell us that the full moon brings out the weirdos...not that we saw many that week ;) . We walked about a half a mile and turned around to walk back. It was cooler than short sleeves and shorts would allow comfortably, but we managed until we got back to "Yvette's" car. Hugs were given, good byes were said and we went our separate ways. We would be driving home in the morning. A long 20 hour drive was ahead of us and we needed some sleep.
I will finish this a bit later. Lunch is over and I need to get back to work :)
*Not her real name
That evening, we met up with *Yvette and went to St, Petersburg, or "St. Pete's" as it is known by the locals. We had dinner at "The Pier" (a local shopping mall over the ocean) and admired the view but missing the sunset again. It was cool, windy and a tad cloudy but pleasant none the less. We had fish at Cha Cha Coconuts, but it was not as nice as I would have hoped. It was OK, but just average. The waiter was a stoner looking guy who did not seem to care about offering good service, so his tip was not as big as I normally would have given.
After dinner, we wandered The Pier a bit and took in the view. "Yvette" took a photo of me and my wife with the ocean as a backdrop and we headed out. On the way back to the van, my wife asked "Yvette" if there was anything interesting close by. "Yvette" informed us that the shops near by catered to the more affluent of the population and we could wander around town for a while if we wanted. We had not wandered very long when "Yvette" spotted a Ben and Jerry's. The look on her face told me all I needed to know...she was in the mood for ice cream.
We went in and sampled the new Baklava flavored ice cream but decided it was not as tasty as we had hoped so my wife got a cheesecake milkshake and "Yvette" and I got banana rum ice cream cups. The banana rum ice cream tasted like Bananas Foster and I made short work of it while we walked. We gravitated towards the soulful sound of a lone trumpet being played in a court yard outside a hotel. The musician was an older black man with a tip jar playing snippits of old favorites. My wife took a couple of dollars and placed them in the cup and we sat on the bench and listened for a few minutes while we watched people enter and leave the court yard.
When the ice cream and music were gone, we walked back to the van. We started to head back and realized we had made a wrong turn. "Yvette" had a map so I made good use of it. The streets in down town St Pete are all numbered, streets and avenues, north and south with the same numbers so you have to be careful when using a map. After a couple of missed turns, we found our way back.
When we got home we took the dogs for the nightly walk and settled in with some TV. It was not long before we both started dozing on the couch, so we headed off to brush our teeth and hit the hay.
The next morning was more of the same routine. We had planned to go to Busch Gardens on Wednesday, but the forecast was calling for scattered thunderstorms and it was cloudy so we stayed home. No need to waste parking fees if it rained at BG. So since it was not going to be a nice day for the park, we spent the next 2 days puttering around the cottage and dealing with our biggest dog who had gotten an irritated paw and required a trip to the local vet and some meds. That added about $100 more to our vacation cost than I had expected, but we were still OK on funds. I cooked dinner on the grill...chicken with a spicy orange sauce. It was great and we had enough for lunch the next day.
Thursday was a down day, the only real excitement was at dinner. We walked to "PJ's" and tried to enjoy an overcooked dinner of shrimp, scallops, and Mahi-Mahi. Since dinner was not all that great, we ordered dessert (I had the Mississippi Mud Pie and my wife had the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake) and enjoyed that. Right after I finished my dessert, I spilled my drink all over me, soaking my entire left side. I was SOAKED. I cleaned up as best as I could, paid the bill and walked home, sticky. I got back and cleaned up while my wife walked the dogs. Later we laughed about it and watched some TV before settling in fo the night.
Friday arrived and we decided we were going back to Busch Gardens. Thursday had been very overcast but Friday was shaping up to be a cool comfortable and sunny day. The started with a bit of excitement as we managed to lock ourselves out of the cottage at 5:30 AM. The cottage had locks on it that automatically locked unless you turned the lock from the inside first. We are not used to that so I started carrying the key with me wherever I went. That morning, my wife went out to let the dogs use the bathroom and she closed the door behind her. She did that a lot and since she did not carry a key, I had to let her back in. Well, After she went out side, I realized I was not really sleepy, so I put on a shirt and shorts and went outside. I failed to grab the key before I pulled the door shut and locked us both out of the cottage. Even though it was a run down little cabin, they had put new windows wtih deadbolt locks on them so getting in via a window was not going to happen. The only real way in was the door I locked behind me. The side door was deadbolted from the inside and it was rather secure.
There was a pane of glass that was lose that I thought I might be able to remove, but since I did not have any tools (the van was locked as well) that was not going to happen, either. There was a gap in the door frame that looked like it had been jimmied in the past (I am sure we were not the only people to get locked out of that cottage), so I thought I would give it at try. Now if you have ever been locked out of your house that has simple door locks, you are probably aware that the old style laminated driver's license works very well to get in between the door jamb. Well, I did not have my wallet with me and there was NOTHING I could find to get in. I was afraid I was going to have to ask the police or fire department to help me. Then my wife and I managed to break a plastic Yoplait yogurt container open (from the trash) until it was one long flat piece of flexible plastic. While it was not the perfect thing to use, I was able to get back in the cottage after about 20 minutes of praying and jimmying. What a way to start the day!
The rest of ourl morning routine took much longer on Friday than it normally did (duh). We did not get to the park until 3 PM and it closed at 7 PM. That gave us only 4 hours to take pics and finish up riding a few of our favorite rides. When we arrived, we found a good parking place but the park was packed with kids who were out of school. Lines were long (we waited over an hour to ride the Rhino Rally) and some of the rides were having problems (Montu shut down for a while). We did manage to ride it after a wait of about 40 minutes. I took as many pictures as I could and then we headed out.
The drive home was uneventful. We were supposed to meet up with "Yvette" after she got off work at 8 PM. We had not eaten and 8 PM is late for us to eat, but we love "Yvette" so we waited for her. She had a last minute customer so she was a few minutes late getting to Crabby Bills for dinner. We chatted and waited for our food and listened as a table of drunks laughed very loudly and made silly comments, most of which I could not understand. Our food came and it was as good as we had expected it would be. I had another blackened Mahi-Mahi sandwich (I could live on those) and my wife ordered clam chowder and grilled shrimp. "Yvette" ordered grilled scallops and we all three enjoyed chatting and eating.
After dinner, we took a walk on the beach. It was dark, but the moon was full. The full moon prompted "Yvette" to tell us that the full moon brings out the weirdos...not that we saw many that week ;) . We walked about a half a mile and turned around to walk back. It was cooler than short sleeves and shorts would allow comfortably, but we managed until we got back to "Yvette's" car. Hugs were given, good byes were said and we went our separate ways. We would be driving home in the morning. A long 20 hour drive was ahead of us and we needed some sleep.
I will finish this a bit later. Lunch is over and I need to get back to work :)
*Not her real name
Monday, May 15, 2006
Life's a Beach
Now that I am pretty much caught up with all my backlogged work (I still have a few things I need help with but today is not the day for them), I can bring you up to date on the Florida trip.
We left on Friday morning (May 5th) and began driving towards Mobile, Alabama. Since the drive to Tampa is about 20 hours from where we live, we decided to stop at a hotel about half way to our destination. The drive was pleasant and took us through Shreveport, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge, LA. I-49 was very long and boring, but doable. We crossed a few swamp and bayou areas in Louisiana, and the bay area of Mobile. We stopped at a pet friendly hotel (Drury Inn) and settled in for a good nights sleep. They did not have the room we requested so they comped us on another room. All in all a good deal for us.
The next day we got up and ate a large complementary breakfast (a nice perk they offer) before heading out. This was the last leg of the drive, taking us across I-10 in Florida (another boring drive) to I-75 south towards our destination. The entire trip there was sunny and pleasant...with only a few trouble spots with regards to traffic. Gas prices were generally 10-20 cents cheaper than here in north central Texas, although we did find a place (Lindale, Texas) that was selling it 30 cents cheaper than here.
We arrived at our cottage at Indian Rocks Beach, 20 miles south of Tampa Bay in the early evening. We had to go to the rental office first to pick up the keys (they do not mail them like other places we have rented from do). Since they were closed, they left the keys in the mailbox for us. We then were able to head back towards the cottage and settle in.
We had our dogs with us so one of the first things we had to do was to let them walk around a bit and do their business. Both of them were eager to explore and were not interested in relieving themselves, but eventually, nature won and the dogs did their thing.
After a quick unpack and feeding of our pets, we hit the beach for an evening stroll. It was a great way to end the day. The air was warm, the wind was blowing, and the surf was lapping on the sand. I really enjoy the sound of the ocean. We finished the evening with a fish sandwich at Crabby Bill's. It may not look like much, but they have great food. We had the blackened Mahi-Mahi and it was GREAT!
I woke up the next morning and had a cup of coffee and walked the dogs. I had just finished walking the second dog when a large woman in a blue bathing suit began waving and shouting at me. I almost ignored her, but eventually I went over to her and she began telling me (in a snotty sort of way) that dogs were not allowed on the beach. Now I know I should have been thankful that she went out of her way to tell me this, but I know she was only doing this for her own good, not mine. We clean up after our dogs and never leave their poo behind for others...that is just the way we are. Anyhoo, I thanked her and moved on. No more beach walks for our dogs. We did find a park a block away, so that was not a big deal.
Sunday we watched a little TV and took another walk on the beach. We did not want to go overboard and wear ourselves out the first day, so we took it easy and relaxed. Later that afternoon, we met up with a former colleague of mine who moved to Florida after she was laid off from Ericsson where we both worked. She is a mid-60's Swede who is not your typical Florida retiree. She owns her own tanning salon (in Florida of all things!) and has lived all over the world. I love listening to here stories.
We went to the southern most point of the island we were on (John's Pass) and walked around for a while. We then found out the entire area of the boardwalk was being purchased to build condos and all the shops were being forced away. Many shops, once their leases were up, were not allowed to renew them, so they packed up and moved on further inland. John's pass is going to lose a lot of charm when construction begins on the condos...
Anyhoo, we were getting hungry and Yvette* said that "Dockside Dave's" had the best grouper sandwiches on the island. She was right on the mark. The grouper was fresh and the sandwich was wonderful. I could have eaten two if my wife would have let me!
We lingered over dinner and headed towards the beach (dodging construction) to walk. The conversation never stalled over the next couple of hours, but we realized that we needed something sweet. "Yvette" suggested ice cream so that is what we had. We ate the ice cream and noticed the sun was going down. We ran to the end of the pier, but all the construction was blocking the view. The only way to get a good view was to hop the fence and trespass or go back up to the street and circle around. Either way would keep us from getting to see the sunset, so we just headed back to the car. We spent about 5 hours with "Yvette" on Sunday and it was wonderful.
Monday was Busch Gardens day for us. We did our normal morning routine (walk the dogs, eat breakfast, walk the beach, shower, etc) and then headed to BG. Monday was a great day to go. School had not let out yet and the park was not very busy. It was easy to ride the rides we wanted to go on and the lines were short. We rode all the coasters, including SheikRa. SheikRa is a "dive coaster" and was a bit of a disappointment. Montu and Kumba are more entertaining. Even the 90 degree drop was lessened by the short time of the actual ride. It does offer a splashdown at the end to drench anyone standing too close to the pool it swoops over.
After BG, we stopped off at Sonny's BBQ. They have an all you can eat special (11.99) of your choice of ribs, pulled pork, sliced pork or beef. It had been a while since I had pulled pork, so I indulged. After stuffing ourselves silly,we drove to Publix Supermarket to get groceries for the week, so we could eat out once a day instead of all three meals...
The rest of the evening was spent relaxing. I will continue this missive later. Time to go home!
* Not her real name
We left on Friday morning (May 5th) and began driving towards Mobile, Alabama. Since the drive to Tampa is about 20 hours from where we live, we decided to stop at a hotel about half way to our destination. The drive was pleasant and took us through Shreveport, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge, LA. I-49 was very long and boring, but doable. We crossed a few swamp and bayou areas in Louisiana, and the bay area of Mobile. We stopped at a pet friendly hotel (Drury Inn) and settled in for a good nights sleep. They did not have the room we requested so they comped us on another room. All in all a good deal for us.
The next day we got up and ate a large complementary breakfast (a nice perk they offer) before heading out. This was the last leg of the drive, taking us across I-10 in Florida (another boring drive) to I-75 south towards our destination. The entire trip there was sunny and pleasant...with only a few trouble spots with regards to traffic. Gas prices were generally 10-20 cents cheaper than here in north central Texas, although we did find a place (Lindale, Texas) that was selling it 30 cents cheaper than here.
We arrived at our cottage at Indian Rocks Beach, 20 miles south of Tampa Bay in the early evening. We had to go to the rental office first to pick up the keys (they do not mail them like other places we have rented from do). Since they were closed, they left the keys in the mailbox for us. We then were able to head back towards the cottage and settle in.
We had our dogs with us so one of the first things we had to do was to let them walk around a bit and do their business. Both of them were eager to explore and were not interested in relieving themselves, but eventually, nature won and the dogs did their thing.
After a quick unpack and feeding of our pets, we hit the beach for an evening stroll. It was a great way to end the day. The air was warm, the wind was blowing, and the surf was lapping on the sand. I really enjoy the sound of the ocean. We finished the evening with a fish sandwich at Crabby Bill's. It may not look like much, but they have great food. We had the blackened Mahi-Mahi and it was GREAT!
I woke up the next morning and had a cup of coffee and walked the dogs. I had just finished walking the second dog when a large woman in a blue bathing suit began waving and shouting at me. I almost ignored her, but eventually I went over to her and she began telling me (in a snotty sort of way) that dogs were not allowed on the beach. Now I know I should have been thankful that she went out of her way to tell me this, but I know she was only doing this for her own good, not mine. We clean up after our dogs and never leave their poo behind for others...that is just the way we are. Anyhoo, I thanked her and moved on. No more beach walks for our dogs. We did find a park a block away, so that was not a big deal.
Sunday we watched a little TV and took another walk on the beach. We did not want to go overboard and wear ourselves out the first day, so we took it easy and relaxed. Later that afternoon, we met up with a former colleague of mine who moved to Florida after she was laid off from Ericsson where we both worked. She is a mid-60's Swede who is not your typical Florida retiree. She owns her own tanning salon (in Florida of all things!) and has lived all over the world. I love listening to here stories.
We went to the southern most point of the island we were on (John's Pass) and walked around for a while. We then found out the entire area of the boardwalk was being purchased to build condos and all the shops were being forced away. Many shops, once their leases were up, were not allowed to renew them, so they packed up and moved on further inland. John's pass is going to lose a lot of charm when construction begins on the condos...
Anyhoo, we were getting hungry and Yvette* said that "Dockside Dave's" had the best grouper sandwiches on the island. She was right on the mark. The grouper was fresh and the sandwich was wonderful. I could have eaten two if my wife would have let me!
We lingered over dinner and headed towards the beach (dodging construction) to walk. The conversation never stalled over the next couple of hours, but we realized that we needed something sweet. "Yvette" suggested ice cream so that is what we had. We ate the ice cream and noticed the sun was going down. We ran to the end of the pier, but all the construction was blocking the view. The only way to get a good view was to hop the fence and trespass or go back up to the street and circle around. Either way would keep us from getting to see the sunset, so we just headed back to the car. We spent about 5 hours with "Yvette" on Sunday and it was wonderful.
Monday was Busch Gardens day for us. We did our normal morning routine (walk the dogs, eat breakfast, walk the beach, shower, etc) and then headed to BG. Monday was a great day to go. School had not let out yet and the park was not very busy. It was easy to ride the rides we wanted to go on and the lines were short. We rode all the coasters, including SheikRa. SheikRa is a "dive coaster" and was a bit of a disappointment. Montu and Kumba are more entertaining. Even the 90 degree drop was lessened by the short time of the actual ride. It does offer a splashdown at the end to drench anyone standing too close to the pool it swoops over.
After BG, we stopped off at Sonny's BBQ. They have an all you can eat special (11.99) of your choice of ribs, pulled pork, sliced pork or beef. It had been a while since I had pulled pork, so I indulged. After stuffing ourselves silly,we drove to Publix Supermarket to get groceries for the week, so we could eat out once a day instead of all three meals...
The rest of the evening was spent relaxing. I will continue this missive later. Time to go home!
* Not her real name
Sorry 'Bout That!
I am not dead. Far from it. I just returned last night from a week long vacation in Florida, sans a laptop! It was great. I will have more details later as I get more time to blog.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
One of "Those" Days...
Today has been a small challenge. It is not anything major, but it is all the little things that seem to really make this day a very long one...and it is only 12:30 PM, CDT.
I started the day off right...a little sleepy, but my sleep was restful. I did my normal routine, including about half of my stretches, since I am still getting those sharp intense pains every now and then. Muscle or nerve, I do not know...
I grab a Monster energy drink (since I did not have my normal cup of joe), down my meds (is that smart/safe to do?), eat my breakfast and go to therapy.
Therapy goes very well and as I am leaving I tell the PT about the little problem I blogged about earlier. Surprisingly enough, he looked concerned. THAT worried me. He told me to stop doing ANYTHING that angers that area, so I agreed. I get in my truck and drive off. No pain as I get inside my Dakota, which almost always happens due to the angle I climb in.
Traffic SUCKS at 8 AM in the Dallas area. An accident makes it worse, so I get on the service road/feeder road to speed things up and to make a long story short, it saved me no time. Feh, no worries.
I get to work and pop my laptop into the docking station and power it up and log on. Great MANDATORY updates. I am already 1 hour later to work than normal (because I have PT on Wednesdays and Fridays) and I am going to be delayed by mandatory updates. Ok, I may as well go change clothes and put my lunch in the fridge. On the way to the breakroom, I drop my lunch and the container of strawberry-banana yogurt explodes, covering EVERYTHING in my bag with yogurt. I toss it in the fridge and head off to the men's room to change clothes.
I then head back to my desk, ignoring my lunch for now. I get back and log on again..the updates took, and I can start work. OUCH...what is that pain in my posterior? Oh no, I did not even do anything...I begin walking around and pain subsides. I go back to my desk.
The next 3 hours are a barrage of tickets, e-mails, and phone calls. Not to mention a the normal work of ticket dispatch and reports. Once I get a lull in the deluge of work, I go to the breakroom to see if I can clean off my lunch. I get about 75% done and my cell phone rings. Reception on this side of the building (on the inside) is horrid, so I leave my lunch in the sink while I take the call. I do not recognize the number, but that is not unusual. It turns out to be my son. He is at AIT, but he has not started yet. The others who were supposed to start have been delayed and they cannot start without them. So my son and 3 others are in the processing station with NOTHING to do for a week.
We had a good chat and I bring him up on what is going on. I tell my son I love him and I go back inside. My lunch is still in the sink (AMAZING!) and I clean it off. The only loss is the yogurt, so no extra calcium today. I get back to my desk and start working on some monitoring software our servers are running. We have about 10 servers (out of 100 or so) that are not responding properly. My TL asks me to look into it. No big issue, except I have no clue what I am doing and I am the Unix noob of the group. So I bite the bullet and start. It turns out one of the admins in Colorado is looking into his four so that leaves me with six. Three of the six are not bad...just adding a couple of lines to the config files and restart the services. They seem to work. The last three are weird. One will not let me log in, another is missing a few files, and the third appears that the software is not even installed. I tell my TL that maybe it would be better if someone with more experience looks at them. They are production servers and I do not want to have my butt fried for messing with them.
Finally, we get an e-mail from out TL asking if any of us are running any processor intensive operations on our main work server. I know I am not, but since I am on the list, I respond and tell him that I do not know of any but if he sees me doing anything wrong, to let me know ASAP.
I am sure I missed a few things, but no worries. I was able to cut our grass last night and need to do our neighbors soon. I hate letting it get out of hand. Maybe I can get it cut before I need to go to care group tonight. Not likely, but it is possible.
Well, I was interrupted to make a console cable for our tech lead, chatted with one of the veteran Unix guys and answered a few e-mails. Those server issues came back so I do not know if what I did meant anything or not.
I started the day off right...a little sleepy, but my sleep was restful. I did my normal routine, including about half of my stretches, since I am still getting those sharp intense pains every now and then. Muscle or nerve, I do not know...
I grab a Monster energy drink (since I did not have my normal cup of joe), down my meds (is that smart/safe to do?), eat my breakfast and go to therapy.
Therapy goes very well and as I am leaving I tell the PT about the little problem I blogged about earlier. Surprisingly enough, he looked concerned. THAT worried me. He told me to stop doing ANYTHING that angers that area, so I agreed. I get in my truck and drive off. No pain as I get inside my Dakota, which almost always happens due to the angle I climb in.
Traffic SUCKS at 8 AM in the Dallas area. An accident makes it worse, so I get on the service road/feeder road to speed things up and to make a long story short, it saved me no time. Feh, no worries.
I get to work and pop my laptop into the docking station and power it up and log on. Great MANDATORY updates. I am already 1 hour later to work than normal (because I have PT on Wednesdays and Fridays) and I am going to be delayed by mandatory updates. Ok, I may as well go change clothes and put my lunch in the fridge. On the way to the breakroom, I drop my lunch and the container of strawberry-banana yogurt explodes, covering EVERYTHING in my bag with yogurt. I toss it in the fridge and head off to the men's room to change clothes.
I then head back to my desk, ignoring my lunch for now. I get back and log on again..the updates took, and I can start work. OUCH...what is that pain in my posterior? Oh no, I did not even do anything...I begin walking around and pain subsides. I go back to my desk.
The next 3 hours are a barrage of tickets, e-mails, and phone calls. Not to mention a the normal work of ticket dispatch and reports. Once I get a lull in the deluge of work, I go to the breakroom to see if I can clean off my lunch. I get about 75% done and my cell phone rings. Reception on this side of the building (on the inside) is horrid, so I leave my lunch in the sink while I take the call. I do not recognize the number, but that is not unusual. It turns out to be my son. He is at AIT, but he has not started yet. The others who were supposed to start have been delayed and they cannot start without them. So my son and 3 others are in the processing station with NOTHING to do for a week.
We had a good chat and I bring him up on what is going on. I tell my son I love him and I go back inside. My lunch is still in the sink (AMAZING!) and I clean it off. The only loss is the yogurt, so no extra calcium today. I get back to my desk and start working on some monitoring software our servers are running. We have about 10 servers (out of 100 or so) that are not responding properly. My TL asks me to look into it. No big issue, except I have no clue what I am doing and I am the Unix noob of the group. So I bite the bullet and start. It turns out one of the admins in Colorado is looking into his four so that leaves me with six. Three of the six are not bad...just adding a couple of lines to the config files and restart the services. They seem to work. The last three are weird. One will not let me log in, another is missing a few files, and the third appears that the software is not even installed. I tell my TL that maybe it would be better if someone with more experience looks at them. They are production servers and I do not want to have my butt fried for messing with them.
Finally, we get an e-mail from out TL asking if any of us are running any processor intensive operations on our main work server. I know I am not, but since I am on the list, I respond and tell him that I do not know of any but if he sees me doing anything wrong, to let me know ASAP.
I am sure I missed a few things, but no worries. I was able to cut our grass last night and need to do our neighbors soon. I hate letting it get out of hand. Maybe I can get it cut before I need to go to care group tonight. Not likely, but it is possible.
Well, I was interrupted to make a console cable for our tech lead, chatted with one of the veteran Unix guys and answered a few e-mails. Those server issues came back so I do not know if what I did meant anything or not.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Let's Play Catch Up...
Not sure where to begin since it has been a while since I last blogged and I am not much for going back and re-reading my own posts :) .
I have been going to physical therapy and doing all the exercises that my PT has told me to do. I have been doing them every day, with the exception of the last two days. It is not that I do not want to...I think I pulled a muscle...and it is somewhat embarrassing.
The PT has given me a list of a few exercises to do at home and I skipped a couple that just seemed too easy. I then had reservations so I went back and did them but I think I over did it. I can move just a certain way and I get this incredible sharp, burning pain. I decided not to do the exercises that I THINK were aggravating it, but it seems thy are all interconnected so many of them will hurt me if I do them. I feel like such a hypochondriac. Every time I turn around SOMETHING else goes wrong, but it is not imaginary. The pain is real. I guess I have to tell my PT tomorrow...oh this is going to be embarrassing.
Work has been going pretty well, although there have been some very hectic days that were over before I knew it. I am still doing the same basic tasks, but a few more things have been added. They have asked me to work on installing some software on some servers on the east coast, but any software we install needs to be done after business hours and frankly I am not available to do much then. I guess my TL will talk with me today on this and we can see what to do.
I had coffee with "Ben"* last Thursday. We talked about many things, one of them being his addiction to adult material. All men are susceptible to the allure of pornography and the battle can be very difficult, even on good Christian men. I let him borrow a book that gave 40 bible bases reasons to resist adult material. It was designed to be a daily devotional, but he breezed right through it and loaned it to his son, who is struggling with the same issues. He then went and ordered 2 copies, one to replace mine and one for himself.
After we chatted about his issue, I opened up to him about one I am having. While not adult in nature, it is still one that I feel very bad about. I told him how I was feeling and what I was doing and he understood. I told him that his input was valuable and I welcomed it, even if it might bruise my feelings a bit. He confided that he has to do a very similar thing although it appears he is better at it than I am. I know this is cryptic, but I want my problems to be my problems, at least until I can get them worked out...and they are. I am making progress and I expect 2-3 months from now I should see some positive results.
Having coffee with "Ben" is a great fellowship. As a man, he understands struggles men face. He is technical by nature, a bit of a smart alec, cynical and sarcastic. He is much like I am, but he is much better about tempering it with reality and spirituality...something I need to work on. We can chat about work, family (we both are married with grown children) and of course, scripture. I hope he goes to the men's retreat this year. I think it would do us both good. He is one of the few people at church I can talk to.
Speaking of church, our church has to change its name for legal reasons. We are working on "faith Fellowship" as a strong contender, but we have to check to see if it is registered anywhere in the county. There was a prayer meeting on this but I did not attend because I was at a house warming party for our friends in Anna, TX. There was a ton of food and we had a fantastic time. I got to meet his younger (well one of his younger ones) brother and we chatted a while. Nice guy who works for Nestle` in the baby food/formula division. He gets to travel internationally 4-6 times a year so that was an area we chatted about.
Well, I think that is about it. Everything else is just normal day to day stuff. Cleaning, mowing grass, walking the dogs...well the dogs are a little different. They are both on medication for allergies and the bigger one has a foot infection while the littler one has an ear infection. Not sure how. They are indoors most of the time and well cared for. Oh well.
*Not his real name.
I have been going to physical therapy and doing all the exercises that my PT has told me to do. I have been doing them every day, with the exception of the last two days. It is not that I do not want to...I think I pulled a muscle...and it is somewhat embarrassing.
The PT has given me a list of a few exercises to do at home and I skipped a couple that just seemed too easy. I then had reservations so I went back and did them but I think I over did it. I can move just a certain way and I get this incredible sharp, burning pain. I decided not to do the exercises that I THINK were aggravating it, but it seems thy are all interconnected so many of them will hurt me if I do them. I feel like such a hypochondriac. Every time I turn around SOMETHING else goes wrong, but it is not imaginary. The pain is real. I guess I have to tell my PT tomorrow...oh this is going to be embarrassing.
Work has been going pretty well, although there have been some very hectic days that were over before I knew it. I am still doing the same basic tasks, but a few more things have been added. They have asked me to work on installing some software on some servers on the east coast, but any software we install needs to be done after business hours and frankly I am not available to do much then. I guess my TL will talk with me today on this and we can see what to do.
I had coffee with "Ben"* last Thursday. We talked about many things, one of them being his addiction to adult material. All men are susceptible to the allure of pornography and the battle can be very difficult, even on good Christian men. I let him borrow a book that gave 40 bible bases reasons to resist adult material. It was designed to be a daily devotional, but he breezed right through it and loaned it to his son, who is struggling with the same issues. He then went and ordered 2 copies, one to replace mine and one for himself.
After we chatted about his issue, I opened up to him about one I am having. While not adult in nature, it is still one that I feel very bad about. I told him how I was feeling and what I was doing and he understood. I told him that his input was valuable and I welcomed it, even if it might bruise my feelings a bit. He confided that he has to do a very similar thing although it appears he is better at it than I am. I know this is cryptic, but I want my problems to be my problems, at least until I can get them worked out...and they are. I am making progress and I expect 2-3 months from now I should see some positive results.
Having coffee with "Ben" is a great fellowship. As a man, he understands struggles men face. He is technical by nature, a bit of a smart alec, cynical and sarcastic. He is much like I am, but he is much better about tempering it with reality and spirituality...something I need to work on. We can chat about work, family (we both are married with grown children) and of course, scripture. I hope he goes to the men's retreat this year. I think it would do us both good. He is one of the few people at church I can talk to.
Speaking of church, our church has to change its name for legal reasons. We are working on "faith Fellowship" as a strong contender, but we have to check to see if it is registered anywhere in the county. There was a prayer meeting on this but I did not attend because I was at a house warming party for our friends in Anna, TX. There was a ton of food and we had a fantastic time. I got to meet his younger (well one of his younger ones) brother and we chatted a while. Nice guy who works for Nestle` in the baby food/formula division. He gets to travel internationally 4-6 times a year so that was an area we chatted about.
Well, I think that is about it. Everything else is just normal day to day stuff. Cleaning, mowing grass, walking the dogs...well the dogs are a little different. They are both on medication for allergies and the bigger one has a foot infection while the littler one has an ear infection. Not sure how. They are indoors most of the time and well cared for. Oh well.
*Not his real name.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)