…so little time. The last few days leave me with a salmagundi of stories and wit I’d like to share, and yet, it’s already a short work week and I’ve got plenty to do. Ah, well. The old blogging will just have to come as it can. I just wanted to whet your appetite a little. There’s much to come in the next week or so, including movie reviews and some great stories and links.

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day. Hug a vet today!

You may have seen the following when trying to surf my site lately:

The site was down for a little while because BlueHost was moving it to a new server as part of a free upgrade. Free?! Shyeah free!

Can I just tell you BlueHost rocks? Okay, cuz they do. I paid $6.95 a month (24 months up-front, about $170) for this service and they’ve upgraded it for free. Now I get 15 Gb or storage and 400 Gb/month of bandwidth, not to mention 50 databases, 25 domains and 20 subdomains, and 2500 email addresses. The web admin rocks. The service rocks (I usually get replies to service emails in about an hour.) and they have all kinds of great tools bundled into the service with one-click installs (including WordPress, the software that this blog runs on). Granted I only use a tiny fraction of all that, but it is growing. (I’m hosting a total of five web sites right now, and a sixth is on the way.) And I have no worries about running out of space or bandwidth.

Yaaay BlueHost! If you want to sign up, just crick here!

Well, I’m back. Thanks to all my faithful readers who sent concerned emails and comments (all three of you). I am, as you can see, not bleeding in a ditch somewhere.

I’m glad this month long internet fast came in February. Any longer month and I might have gone sane! During the last few weeks, I’ve been intolerably bored in the afternoons, but I have gotten a ton of work done. I created a whole new web application for the office intranet (twice, actually). I also learned that my RSS feed aggregator stops counting unread posts at 200. (For those of you who are not Geek enough to know, that means that some of the blogs I read daily had more than 200 posts that I have not read.) 200 posts in four weeks?! Good grief, people, get a life!!

I have also missed out on all sorts of great news bits and internet silliness. I totally missed the vice presidential lawyer hunt, and have all but missed all the good stories about Muddy Gras in the flood plain formerly known as Nawlins. I don’t even want to think about all the hilarity that will never be because I missed out on the entire 2006 Olympics. I watched them, of course. Don’t be silly. I live with the world’s biggest Olympic fan. (No, no… Big like enthusiastic, not big like plump. Jeez, you’re going to get me in trouble!)

It was interesting to see that when I stopped posting to my blog, my comment spam instantly disappeared. Something my Web Geek friends might find intriguing.

So, anyway. Enough rambling. I’ve got reading to do!!

I’m sure there are oodles of things I could be blogging about lately and you may have noticed a conspicuous lack of posts. Allow me to explain.

The kids in our high school and middle school youth groups are joining with other youth groups all over DFW in a project called “The Way” (http://www.studentsoftheway.com). Part of the project is for kids to fast and pray for the project and pray for the conversion of their lost friends. Fasting is not always about going without food. Fasting is basically giving up something that occupies your mind in exchange for prayer. So, this month, I’m fasting from the net.

Obviously, I can’t stay off line all month. I am a web developer. It’s my job to do some surfing. But I know I spend way too much time blogging. So until March 1st, I am limiting myself to surfing on my lunch hour. And during the day, whenever something comes to mind that I would usually pop open a browser and look up (that’s not work related), I’ll restrain myself. Instead of spending a few minutes googling and/or blogging something, I’ll spend a minute praying for our kids, for “The Way”, and for revival in our town.

With only an hour for recreational surfing, I won’t have time to read all the nitty gritty political news, nor all the wacky web sites that spawn most of my blog posts. I’ll keep the white board going and I’m going to finish the climbing wall post (volume three), but that’s about it.

So, when you come back by and there’s nothing new to read, take a minute and pray for the kids of the Way. Thanks!

Frap… It’s the term my mom always used as a hollow threat when I was a teenager. “Straighten up or I’m gonna frap you!” To my knowledge, she never did frap me, so I am still not sure what it means… Until NOW!

Yet another weird Google beta project is making the rounds. Frappr seems to not much more than a pin map for groups of people. Cuz, of course, everyone wants to have a pin on a map that represents them… *blank stare* …I guess.

For my loyal fans, and anyone else who feels an urgent need to be frapped, you can put your own pin in the SYNS Fans Frappr map. Go on, knock yerself out! It’s free!! (Then again, so are dried leaves in autumn, but I digress.)

So does this mean that all that time, my mom was just threatening to indicate my location on a map somewhere? Jeez, I would have been much more rebellious if that’s all the consequences were.

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.

For a while, I’ve been bothered by the fact that “Surely You’re Not Serious” lives on my Light-Spark.com domain. It seemed like the blog really needed it’s own named domain. Well, guess what… Yep! (How’d you guess? Are you psychedelic?!)

Yahoo Small Business is offering domain registration at retardedly cheap prices. For just $3 you can register your own domain. Now, for the price of a Double Whopper, you can register all those crazy domains you’ve been dreaming of. You know, like LeatherCouchFart.com or BatmanIsBetterThanSuperman.com. (Sorry, MyBrotherIsADork.com is already taken.)

Anyway, go ahead and update your bookmarks! We are now broadcasting loud and proud on http://SurelyYoureNotSerious.com!!

Yaaay.

(Updated Technorati Profile)

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!

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?!