I must apologize to my family and friends who rely on this blog to keep tabs on my well being. I’ve had several folks ask me why I have not yet posted about the status of our move. To be honest, things are pretty crazy around here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I am thankful for the opportunity to server God by acting in the Christmas musical at church. It’s just that three three-hour rehearsals a week can put a strain on your play time. I can’t even express how blessed we are to have this new apartment. It’s just that moving is tough and (as my wife can attest) I start to get grumpy after several days living with boxes in the house.

So, without further whining, here’s the latest 4-1-1.

Tammy and I are 90% settled into our new apartment. We have all the major furniture in place and most of the essentials (meaning our TV and computers, of course) are set up and on-line. The new place is all we hoped it would be. It’s bigger (for the most part) and newer and it has a garage (which still contains a chaotic tumble of boxes, bicycles, and tools, but I promised no more whining, so…)

There have been a couple of hang-ups, but as moves goes, this has been a good one. We had probably the lowest attrition rate of any of our previous six moves (Yeah, six. I know.) One of Tammy’s Dreamsicles© needs some glue and my old $10 garage sale book shelves have been demoted to garage storage shelves. Probably the biggest disappointment has been that there is no room for our dining table. Of course we’ve had dinner either in front of the TV or computers for years, so it won’t be a big adjustment.

Words can not say how grateful we are to our friends who helped us move everything in record time. There’s not enough pizza in the world to thank you guys enough!

I am writing this from my Mom’s computer in La Grange, Texas. We are at the ranch for Thanksgiving and things at home have been so crazy lately, I haven’t had time to post.

It seems to be a tradition for Tammy and I to have insanely busy holiday seasons. We have been rehearsing for our church’s Christmas musical three nights a week since the end of October. I still work with the middle school kids every Wednesday nights, and on our few remaining free evenings we’ve been packing up our apartment. We are moving (as I mentioned before) and our move in/out falls on Thanksgiving weekend.

So, we’re at the ranch for today and Thursday. Then Friday morning we hurry back home to sign the new lease and see if we can move all the boxes into the new apartment in one afternoon. Saturday morning, I pick up a rental truck and meet several friends (THANKS GANG!!!) to move the furniture. We hope to have the old apartment cleaned and get the keys turned in Saturday night. *Fingers firmly crossed*

Then we have musical rehearsal on Sunday afternoon. *Whew*

I just wanted you all to know that I’m not lying dead in a ditch. Much to the contrary. I hope to have pics of the new apartment up in a week or so. Until then, say a prayer for us.

My truck, BamBam (What? You don’t name your vehicles? Shame on you!), is famous for it’s many bumper stickers. Not just any bumper sticker has what it takes to make it onto my truck. They must say something important, poignant, or whacky enough to be a WBQotW. Such is the case with this week’s quip.

If you’re living like there is no God, you’d better be right!

I always know I’ve been neglecting my blog when I have two weekly quips right next to each other.

However, this time I can honestly say it was not due to laziness. Quite the opposite, it was due to diligent work. You see, my wife put forth a challenge last weekend. She challenged me to spend the whole time I’m at work actually working on work. (I know! What was she thinking?!) But, I am always a sucker for a challenge.

So last week, I only surfed the web during my lunch hour. And since I did have to eat too, I was only able to spend about half an hour a day taking care of my usual business of reading multiple news web sites, a few web comics, several of my favorite humor and political blogs, and youth blogs on Xanga. Needless to say, I fell WAY behind on my reading and subsequent blogging. Still I did manage to accomplish a lot of work, which is what they actually pay me for, so I suppose that’s a good thing. Maybe I should make this a habit and actually earn my wages.

Naahhh!

I find myself once again in Microsoft trainging all week… or as I like to call it Gates Brain Washing. This week I’m learning why only a total waste of human plasma would dare use anything other than Microsoft SQL server. In fact, even if you don’t need a database server, you should probably mortgage your children so that you can buy Microsoft SQL server just in case you might someday need an Enterprise Level Relational Data Base Server to store your Christmas card mailing list.

Oh, and Oracle is the spawn of Satan.

Believe it or not, my lack of posts over the last week has had very little to do with me being lazy. This time there’s a real reason.

I currently work at a small tech company called GIS2 Ltd. It’s a long and unnecessary story, but suffice to say, GIS2 is an off-shoot of Alt-N, the company that produces MDaemon (a way cool email server). At the end of this month, I will no longer work for GIS2. In fact, no one will. It is being reabsorbed into Alt-N. (Saying it that way gives it such a cool alien invasion vibe. Don’cha think?)

The merger is a really big deal. The biggest impact on us, the employees, is that we have a new, larger office space in Grapevine, Texas. This week was GIS2’s first week at the new office.

Moving always leaves me with mixed emotions. Of course the physical aspects of moving are a huge pain in the chair facing flesh. But the emotional aspects are great! The newness, the excitement, the potential. I really dig that.

And now, for the biggest aspect (by Geek standards) I have left the realm of the cubicle monkey! I have a real office! With a DOOR and EVERYTHING!! I can’t begin to tell you how exciting that is for me. I have a hugimungous white board mounted on an actual, solid, permanent wall.

Today, Alt-N is beginning their move-in. So there are loud people moving all around the office, learning their way around, moving furniture, etc. And I am contentedly sitting in my OFFICE with the DOOR closed, jamming out to The O.C. Supertones on SPEAKERS (No more headphones of me, baby!), and plotting out where to place next week’s White Board Quip on my colossal white board. I am just flat out giddy.

You may be thinking that the title of this post implies a sequel. Way to go, Einstein. You’re right! I’ve been pitifully spoiled the last two and half years to live two miles from the GIS2 office. I’ve ridden my bike to work almost every day for the last three months. (Take that, OPEC!!) But the new digs are thirteen miles from home. Granted, I’ve ridden more than twice that far in a single day, but it’s not something I really want to do before I sit for eight hours stinking up my new and wonderful office. Nor am I real keen on tripling our current gas budget. So, Tammy and I have been shopping for an apartment in a location that would ease our logistic expenses. We found a grrrreat new place that’s almost directly between my new office and our church (where we spend almost as much time as we do at home). We won’t be moving until our current lease expires at the end of November. You can expect Part Duex then.

The new place is cheaper than our current digs and it has loads of perks: bikeable distance to work (eight miles) and to church (five miles), nicer community with tennis courts and a real hot tub (not just a warmer, smaller pool), 2nd floor instead of 3rd, the stairs are inside the apartment (read ‘climate controlled, baby!’), and … brace yourself … it has a real live GARAGE! *GLEEEE*

Life just keeps getting better and better. This, of course, makes me extremely leery as I know (from experience) that the more God blesses you, the more He expects of you. Seems like Satan enjoys taking pot-shots at folks who are gleefully sunning themselves on the mountain tops of life. But hey, I have a door AND a garage! I’m ready to take on the WORLD!

My long awaited expedition to Grand Teton has come to an end. It was quite an adventure, if not a complete success. You can read my also long awaited write-up of the trip here.

Once in a while, Dilbert hits a little too close to home. I refer to such situations as “It’d be funny if it weren’t so true.” WBQotW #38 is just such a quip.

Good ol’ Wally… He’s a combination of two archtypes, the anti-social engineer and the guy who puts a lot of effort into not doing any work. Now, my biggest personal weakness is that I’m not as hard a worker as I’d like to be. Okay, I’m lazy. I said it. I hope you’re happy. I don’t like to admit it because it’s not something I’m proud of. Once in a while, good ol’ Wally says something that makes me laugh for a second. Then I stop when I realize that I do that too. Then, it’s not so funny.

I used to read, but it’s faster to make stuff up.

*sigh* It’s true.

I’ve been dragging my feet, trying not to post anything big until my Grand Teton trip report is ready. But here it is September 6th, and it’s still not finished. I’ve been very busy… yes… very very busy doing… something… something I call “being lazy”. It’s hard work being lazy. It takes commitment! You just can’t put off being lazy. It’s something that you can only do “in the now”.

I swear the trip report is more than halfway done. I’ve culled the 230 pictures I took down to about two dozen that are cropped and ready.

Now, if you just can’t stand the tension and simply must have the spoiler then I will provide you with what you need. Simply high-light the following line to reveal the trip spoiler (using my patented reveal-o-magic technology).

We didn’t make the summit of Grand Teton. THERE! Now you know the rotten, painful truth. HAPPY?!

Friday is date night for Tammy and I. We try to do something special together, just the two of us. We usually go out to a nice dinner, then catch a movie or go shopping. Now, before you start calling me mean names for doing such girly stuff, let me tell you what we did last Friday. We went to the dirt track!

I love my wife so much. She is anything but girly. She loves to go rock climbing and when we snuggle on the couch on Sunday afternoon, it always involves watching NASCAR or football, depending on the season.

I have a little history with dirt track racing. I raced thunder bombers one summer back in college. Please, check out this article in which I wax nostalgic about those days of dirt and steel.

Going to the track is a great sociological experience. You ain’t seen no red neck ’til you been down to the races on Friday night. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of respect for the working class and I’m a Texan through and through, but if you like people watching as much as I do, then there’s nothing better than seeing Granny whoop and holler for her boy in the 15 car. She most likely will have nacho cheese running down her chin or, if your really fortunate, it’ll be Copenhagen instead.