PLEASE please PLEASE give this a watch: The Story of Stuff
It talks about the impact we’ve had on the planet and how we’ve really become a country of selfish consumers and she’s 100% right 
Please take the time to watch it. And then pass it on.
I have to say, even with how much I would like Hillary to concede, it has been the most exciting political experience for me. I’m more involved, more informed, and more concerned with the outcome. I’ve been a fan of Obama since he spoke at the DNC in 2004, and I was glad to see him declare his candidacy this year. I’ll be really interesting to see what happened once we finally have a democratic candidate. I hav a good feeling about this year.
I’m not sure what will happen below, I am testing out the adsense part of Wordpress
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it’s nice to be home.
I went to GA for a three day training class in SQL Server Analysis Services. It was pretty informative and we’ll hopefully be able to do quite a bit with it. SSAS is a way of taking a mountain of unrelated data and separating it into nice neat piles that you can then point reports, and charts and other tools at to report more effectively.
Got out of class at around 1 and was in my house by 7:15 thanks to an earlier flight. Under two hours to fly to Atlanta from Newark, wasn’t too bad at all actually. Alpharetta GA is really pretty and I only had to go down to the lobby ONCE during the Tornado watch that blew through on Tuesday night. Fun Fun Fun!
So I drove in today, and of course, it took me 2.5 hours. Glad I work from home most of the time:)
I’m sitting in my hotel room, relaxing, watching TV, doing some work. I’m completely uninterrupted except by the call of nature, and pausing to listen to the rain outside. Yeah, there was a tornado warning about 4 miles from my hotel, enough that they called all the rooms so we would all go to the lobby where it was ’safer’. Yeah, okay.
I’m getting to relax, read, watch TV, play a game, watch baseball on my computer….And I have never missed them more than I do right now. This is why I started this blog in the first place – to put down my thoughts and feelings and have a place to take a look at what is important in my life right now. I mis my son’s laugh, I miss my daughter’s smile and the way she gives me cheek kisses; I miss the smell of my wife’s hair and the way she calls me baby.
My class is over tomorrow and more than anything that I have learned in the class, I realized how much I have, and how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing family. So sleep tight guys, and I’ll see you in the morning.
If you have never had a chance to eat at Waffle House, you do not know what your arteries are missing. When I was living in Harrisonburg, attending James Madison Univ, I used to go there all the time and get eggs, toast, grits, and hash browns. The hash browns are legendary and you can get them a lot of different ways. I like mine, “Scattered, Smothered, and Covered” which is WaffleHouse-ese for Hash browns, with onions and cheese.
I am a much more cholesterol laden man than I was yesterday. but MAN was it good. I recommend it to anyone who like breakfast food. Watch out for your cholesterol level tho
is it as cool as I thought it would be? No. Is it easier? Sort of.
Does it give me more time with the family? You frickin betcha. Just being able to get the kids off to school and get them off the bus is cool enough. I was to the point where most nights I would only be able to see Gillian for all of about 30 min before she went to bed. Now? Heh, lets just say that she’s seeing a lot more of Daddy and I’m feeling a lot less guilty for taking this job.
When I first started working from home, any interruption would set me off. Not drive me into a rage or make me throw stuff and start ranting, but really disrupt my train of thought. Now that I’ve had some time to work with it for a while and we’ve all fallen into better habits, I like it a whole lot more. I usually get up at the same time I usually do to drive in (6:15), work for an hour or so, get the kids off to school, work until noon, have lunch, work till three, hang with the kids and help with homework, then get back on for a few hours after they go to bed. Granted, it stretches it out a lot longer, but it allows me to spend better time with them, and get a lot more work done.
That first hour of work is crucial, mostly just reading emails and technical posts and stuff like that. The first burst is usually pure code, and after lunch is usually research and analysis. I do maintenance as it comes up, and usually the last hour or two before I go to bed I’ll start dipping into my todo’s – creating ‘bookmarks’ in my code for what I want to do, and bringing my day to a close by wrapping up things and getting them into a state where if something broadsides me the next morning, I can usually leave my work from the day before and handle the emergency and even go so far as to be able to migrate my stuff if the emergency becomes more than a 20min or 1 hr thing.
All in all, I’m becoming a better developer, time manager, Dad, husband…and hopefully, person
Thanks again for having faith in me Matt. (no, I’m not talking to myself, my boss’ name is Matt as well)
Okay, so I’m posting every other day!
Went to Kendo on wednesday, and yes, I’m still sore. Oiled up both Aidan’s and my shinai because if you don’t the bamboo gets brittle and breaks. Learning some basic, repetitive techniques, still no gi or hakama.
FTNITK – Gi is the uniform, pants and top, worn by martial artists. Hakama looks a lot like a skirt, but it’s actually pants.
In the school I am taking class with, you start off with just a shinai. Just basic techniques, your sword, and a lot of moving forward and backwards. The thing I have noticed is that the tighter you are, the sorer you get, and the worse the technique looks. If you loosen up and relax, and tighten up just before the technique lands, you’re much better off.
Okay, it’s 9am, I should get to work.
Okay, it’s true, I’m lame. I said I would do a post everyday and I didn’t. I could change the timestamps and say I posted one, but that’d be cheating.
Number of pushups since I said I would try to do something physical – 20.
Number of pushups since I wrote that last sentence? 10. Guilt is a decent motivator
So what’s up internet? What have I learned since my last post?
that’s about it. I’ll probably post again sometime today.
Kendo tonight!
I’ve decided to try to post something every day, whether it be at night or first thing in the morning.
So, that in mind, today’s post.
I’m sore, I’m old, and I need to do things differently. So what, physically, have I done this weekend? It’s Sunday afternoon and so far, I’ve done nothing. What am I going to do before the end of the day? I dunno. I’d like to try to post daily, and in doing so, be able to post something about working out that day.
Wednesdays are easy. I have Kendo with my son I also need to get the kids running regularly – for Gillian, it’ll help her in Soccer – for Aidan, just for general fitness.
Lets see what happens.
