In June of 2004, I spent a week in a Microsoft training class being bored to tears. During breaks, and sometimes during the actual sessions, I read through every page of Cockeyed.com, the closest thing to a blog that I’d read to that point. I’d heard of blogs and the whole notion sounded pretty stupid. Who wants to read every joe-schmoe’s on-line diary. But after spending several days taking in the wit and creativity of Rob Cockerham, I thought it might be a cool creative outlet.

On June 9th, 2004, I created an account on BlogSpot. My first post was titled “Surely you’re not serious” because for so long I had bemoaned the blog concept. The name stuck and so did the blog.

Happy birthday, SYNS! Three years and counting.

I’ve got over a dozen links lined up for my big global warming post, I just don’t have time to write it. Gah!! Darned real life. It’s always ruining my fun.

This is so cool. SYNS has been nominated for “Best Humor Blog” and “Best Blog Design” at the Blogger’s Choice Awards. Friggin’ awesome! (Thanks Ghosty for the nods.)

You have to create an account to vote, and it’s kind of a pain, but your vote would sure be appreciated!

Vote early! Vote often!!

I’m really having a hard time with the idea that it’s already February. Somehow the entire month of January passed in what felt like a week. But, at long last, my life should be returning to normalcy, which in my life is a bit of a misnomer.

I’m still shaking bugs out of the new website, but I’m confident enough in it to send you there. It’s at www.altn.com. I’ll get some screen shots of the old website before we trash it so you can see a comparison. We went from a “way too busy”, “magazine ad” look to a down-right Spartan, “clean and simple” look. And oh-by-the-way, we completely redesigned the back-end, e-commerce architecture and introduced a fully content managed design. Now the marketing guys can reword and rearrange to their hearts’ content without bother the web developers… much.

I am co-directing “The Diaries of Adam and Eve” for Stage Right Productions. It’s a dessert theater performed in reader’s theater style. By “co-directing” I mean that I showed up for auditions, two rehearsals, and that’s about it. Please reference my earlier discussion of the chronology of January. Still, the show is going to be awesome.

The stage will still be warm after dessert theater when we start auditions and rehearsals for the Spring musical. I’ve been too busy to know much about what’s going on there, but rest assured, I’ll be involved somehow.

I can’t express how eager I am get back on my mountain bike and rock wall. I look forward to misplacing my gut, maybe for good this time.

There are so many things I’ve missed over the last three or four months that I’ll never really be able discuss fully here. Apparently there was some election or something and the Democrats are kind of excited about it. Despite the insistence and urging of many, the world has not melted, nor the sky fallen. Several people about whom I really couldn’t care less have publicly announced that rehab will somehow repair their moral bankruptcy and corrupt lifestyles. There are also unconfirmed reports that some vestige of the movie industry still exists in Southern California.

I look forward to getting back in the saddle and entertaining you all, or at least allowing you to peek in on my occasional rants and worthless opinions.

This is it, sports fans. It’s 4 AM the night before the web site goes live. I’ll publish the web address later when I know the site release was successful. I’m not pessimistic. I just don’t want to invite you all to the party and they kick you all out because somebody spilled punch on the carpet.

I’m making the last preparations and moving the latest code to the server. It’s kind of like putting your kid on the bus for the first time (except I’ve never actually done that). You just hope that you’ve raised them right and that none of the other kids beat them up once their out of your care.

I want to thank EVERYONE for your encouragement, prayer, patience, prayer and prayer. If you sent me a comment and didn’t see it show up, it’s probably because I had 352 comments in my moderation folder (I’m SO not making that up) and rather than try to sort through them, I just deleted them all. Nothing personal. It’s just… you know… 4 AM.

Do any of you WordPress nuts out there know of a plug-in that converts your archive links into a calendar? Also, I’m looking for a way to paginate the posts you see when you click a category. Right now, my category views only go back about a year, so dozens of WBQotW’s are lost in obscurity where they can do no good for mankind.

I snuck (sneaked? snucked?) out of my cage just long enough to let everyone know I’m still alive. My whiteboard says (in big, threatening red letter) “2 WEEKS TO GO!” even though, I only have one week and two days (not counting the weekend, which I will probably spend working too).

Anyhoobers. I know I’m missing out on all kinds of yummy news stories this month, but darn it, if I don’t get this project done, they’ll take away my web-guru card and I won’t be able to blog at all!!

I promise to be back at full blogging velocity sometime in early October. (Notice how I kept that really vague. I didn’t even say which October!)

It’s official. I am behind. (No, I did not say, “I am A behind.”) It’s crunch time at work. I am taking the lead on Alt-N‘s new web site design. Not only are we re-designing the look of the site, we are re-writing it ASP.NET, implementing a new content management system, and re-designing the commerce portion of the site to use a new, custom designed web service model for Microsoft Commerce Server. Dave is truly on the bleeding edge with his modifications to MSCS and I’m just hoping to keep up with him.

Anyway, all this is to say my blogging will continue to suffer at the bottom of my priority list for at least another two weeks. Maybe more.

I have lots of personal news to share and even more topics I’d like to blog about, but I just don’t have the time. I will do my best to squeeze out a couple of posts in the next few weeks, but I can’t make any promises at this point.

Keep the internet warm for me. I’ll be back soon.

This may be the first time I’ve ever blogged at night. Very weird for me. I’ve been busy at work (and working at staying busy, you know, same old struggle) so my daytime surfing is once again down to a dribble.

Summer’s in full swing now, which means I’m getting busy after hours too. Youth church camp was a couple of weeks ago (Yes, I’m in trouble for not posting the pictures yet.) and the middle school mission trip is fast approaching. Plus, this is our first summer to have a dinner theater in production showing August 4th and 5th. July is going to be a blur.

I’m proud of Tammy. She landed a major role in the production. I got a side part, comic relief once again. I’m glad though. It means fewer practices for me. *wink* It’s going to be a really cool show. Not really a “family show” in the sense that it has some pretty heavy scenes dealing with broken families, etc. But please, please come. Make it a date night. (Yes, children. If you over 12, you can still come. I wouldn’t want you to miss seeing Tammy’s big break-through role.)

I’m back to biking at full strength. I made the trip to work yesterday in 33 minutes 18 seconds, averaging just over 15 mph. Pretty good for a fat boy. The summer heat is starting stink, literally, but I’m going to keep biking as long as I can. I’m getting pretty good at bathing in the bathroom sink. Yeah, you’re right. T.M.I.

I have discovered a new toy! I just created an account for myself at PollHost.com. So, I’m thinkin’ about doing a monthly poll. Weeee!

See what you think. If I get enough response from this first poll, I’ll do more later.