In case you were starting to feel optimistic about the people around you…

Half the people you know are below average.

CAUTION: The following post contains images of fat, pasty, computer geeks wearing less clothes than usual. It was so bad, even the sun had to look away. Viewer discretion is advised.

Last weekend was our annual company boat party. I’m not sure how much longer this tradition will hold out, since the company continues to grow. This year we had to take out the biggest boat you can rent on Lake Grapevine in order to accommodate our near 50 employees.

In case you were wondering, it takes exactly six ounces of frozen margarita to make Tammy feel nauseous.

But the most of the Alt-N crew drink like fish… literally!

Greg’s working on a wicked margarita tan line.

Even Arvel, our fearless leader, was in on the floating alcohol action.

Despite the skipper’s orders, we couldn’t resist jumping off the upper deck of the party boat.

Of course, when I tried it, I slipped and nearly broke my neck. And I didn’t even have any alcohol!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of Jerry trying to kill Tammy and me on the tube behind his boat. This year he even orchestrated a thunderstorm to try and rattle us. (Man, has he got connections or what?!) Nonetheless, we survived. Nyaah nyaah!

I want to extend my gratitude yet again to Arvel and Jerry for creating a place where guys like me can love to work.

If any of you Alt-N guys want to scrape my pictures for your own use, you can get the originals here.

No, I’m not going to sing, so put away the ear plugs. What I am going to do is shower praises on my white board. I don’t mean to sound sacrilegious or idolatrous, but I really do love my white board. I am very blessed to work for a company that pampers its employees and one of my peak perks is my giant, erasable friend.

I’ve always been fond of white boards. It’s like being allowed to color on the walls without getting in trouble. I can write funny little quips, draw silly faces, or even write out long lists of tasks I am putting of whilst I doodle and joke on my white board.

In the last twelve months in particular, I have kept a ridiculously large “to-do” list on my white board. It grows and shrinks as new bugs are found and squashed. But as yet, I’ve not been anywhere near an empty white board. I’m not bragging. Far from it. I would love to have some sense of closure on this web site project, despite the job security I often joke about.

At the end of last year, in the midst of several months of 80-hour weeks, Tammy stopped by the office for dinner and snapped these pictures of me and my white board. This is when the web site was about half way finished and, as you can see just below the WBQotW, the release date was about to be pushed back yet again.

Isn’t it beautiful? Boy am I blessed! (And fat. *sigh* 80-hour weeks don’t leave much time for exercise. Lucky for me those days are over and I’ve lost… umm… well… about 3 pounds.)

I have determined that there’s not any sensitive information on my board in these pictures, so I uploaded a full sized image for your entertainment. This is what an e-commerce web site looks like on the inside. Pretty messy, huh? Good thing guys like me can stretch a pretty user interface over the top of the chaos.

I spent a lot of time in the Texas heat this weekend. (Actually, it’s been pretty nice for this time of year.) Between the annual Alt-N boat party and a long day at Six-Flags, I got more than a healthy dose of sun. Thank goodness for sunscreen! But what about sunscreen for my hair?!

How is it that the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

Just wanted to let you all know I’m still alive. I have not read any news blogs in almost two weeks and have barely been able to keep up with two or three of my daily reads (including web comics). But I can say that my bug list at work has received some much needed attention this week.

I know. I know. That’s not much consolation. I’m trying to get used to blogging at night and it’s just not happening… yet. Hang in there folks. We should be back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

I love my wife. Tammy has been growing a lot over the last year. I don’t mean she’s turned into the fifty foot woman. Well, in a spiritual sense, she’s getting close to that. Tammy is growing in God and it humbles me, amazes me, and thrills me all at the same time. Here’s her latest MySpace blog post. (I’m reproducing it here so you don’t have to log into MySpace to see it.)

Current mood: determined
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Time to share. The Lord has shown me a lot that I feel needs to be shared with those I know.

If you have been going to church lately, Pastor Dennis has been speaking about the 3 chairs. The first chair represents committed Christians whose whole live is devoted to God. The second chair represents compromising Christians who live for God on Sunday, but live for themselves the rest of the week. The third chair represents the lost, people who either don’t know anything about God or who have heard about Christianity, but don’t accept it for whatever reason.

I don’t know about anyone else but these messages have been a kick in the rear for me. I’ve been going in between 1st and 2nd chair for way to long. I have tried to keep running my life on my own instead of letting Jesus take the full reign over my life.

I have been digging into God’s Word more and more since these messages have been planted into my life. The more I have been reading the Word the more the Lord has convicted me of one of the most popular phrases I hear from Christians including myself: “What is God’s will for my life?” In the Word the answer is as clear as it gets. God’s will for every Christian is to reach out to others and spread his love to those who don’t know him. Why is that so hard for Christians? Well the word FEAR is something that I and a lot of other Christians face. We fear rejection and failure more than anything. But you know what? The only thing to fear is God. I read the entire book of Revelation on Saturday and my brain hasn’t stopped thinking about the world, my family, our church, friends who are sitting in the 2nd chair and those who do not know Jesus as their personal savior. I have been dreaming about the war that will take place as the tribulation begins and how many people I know that will be in that war if I don’t do something about it. Our nation is “one nation under God,” but where is God? Our nation is in desperate need of Christians who will stand up and make a difference.

On Friday night I had the opportunity to go to Christ for the Nations in Dallas . They hold a open worship night once a month and it was such an awesome and eye opening experience. As hundreds gathered that night to worship the Lord, the speaker made a very good point. Worship that night was corporate worship but our true worship is outside the walls of the church. As I prayed and worshiped that night I cried out to the Lord about Christians, myself included, that need to stop thinking about themselves and start spreading the love of Jesus.

Over the past week my heart has been turned upside with my 5 siblings who have nothing to do with Jesus. My brother Rich was going to be a pastor and now has nothing to do with Jesus. My sister Kathy was in a tragic accident and the Lord saved her life and she still hasn’t had anything to do with God. My sisters Gloria and Misty, I’m not sure where they are or even if they ever had a time in their lives when they were saved. My closest sister Amy has strayed so far away from the Lord that she is deliberating sinning and has admitted to it. My heart is crying out so bad for my siblings and their families who haven’t heard about the Lord. It’s time that I stop thinking about it and start doing something about it. Approaching them could cause our relationships to end but if I don’t do it who will?

We need to lay down our pride and start getting our lives right with the Lord. The end is coming and it’s time to take a stand. Dig into the Word, memorize the Word. Be prepared with the Word for the events that lie ahead. Be bold!! Be Strong!!

Tammy

( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( O

(Heh. Get it? It’s a drum… rolling… Get it? Heh heh.)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to White Board Quip of the Week #100. There have been far more than 100 weeks since I began this cultural phenomenon, but let’s not quibble over the details.

Waaay back in October of 2004 I posted this first White Board Quip on my blog.

If God had meant people to run around naked, they’d be born that way!

Now since that was WBQotW #1, it can’t really be recycled into WBQotW #100. So, what quip should it be? I’ve poured over my entire quip database looking for just the right quip. I’ve decided to honor one of White Board Quip’s biggest fans.

Even though he doesn’t have a blog, and seldom visits my site, Arron Caruth never misses a chance to drop by my office and read the quip right off my white board. So, Arron, this one’s for you.

I don’t know if I’m too good for hot dogs or if hot dogs are too good for me.
– Arron Caruth

This conversation enhancement came from a coworker responding to a run-of-the-mill “Donuts in the breakroom” email here at work.

sacrilicious \SAK-ri-LISH-eous\, adj.:
Pertaining to or describing something highly enjoyable and highly destructive.
“This chocolate-fudge-pudding-cocaine-crumble-cake is sacrilicious! Of course I want another piece!”

Full discloser: While this post was being written, I ate two donuts.

I’m not ignoring you. I’m trying something different. Something that, so far, looks a lot like I’m ignoring you.

My readers know well the struggles I have with productivity and self-discipline. Coming back from vacation, I was worried that I would have a hard time working at work. So, this week, I exported my “daily reads” bookmarks and emailed them to my home PC. The idea was that I could still do all my daily surfing and blogging, but do it at home after Tammy goes to bed. I think you can see how that turned out.

Other than some video links that were emailed to me at work, and PvPOnline, I haven’t surfed this week. While I was a little more productive during the week, I’m not sure if it was enough to justify the suffering. Plus, this morning, when I dragged myself out of bed, my brain was nearing the oatmeal state. I was babbling to myself all morning as I got ready, and most of the babble (that was coherent) had to do with going back to bed.

I can’t even blame my mood on “spring fever” because it’s been so hot and humid, I’ve had no desire to be outside. Pretty much just the desire to be on the my couch, drooling and staring slack-jawed at the TV.

I’m going to call this experiment, at least in the short term, a failure.

I must apologize for not announcing this before the fact. Tammy and I have just returned from a fantastic vacation, our first real vacation in five years.

We spent the week back in our old haunt, Colorado Springs, and the surrounding areas. We rode our mountain bikes down the ski runs at Snow Mass (near Aspen), we climbed Pikes Peak, we took over 300 pictures!! We … are … tired.

I need to dole out thanks to Raju for the use of his Canon Rebel XT digital SLR and mad props to Shane and Jen Weeks for their hospitality and very comfortable basement.

I hope to get some pictures and maybe even a little video up sometime this week.

Now back to your regularly schedule programming.

[Edit: Pictures from the trip are here.]