From the MMC Weekend

From left to right, Marv, Nancy, Jeff, Karen, LuAnn, Mark, Karen, Me, Denise, Brad, Kim, Kevin

Conversion Status - 8/2/13

Last night, I worked on the conversion until 8:30, then went downstairs and played drums until 9. I came upstairs, brushed my teeth, and went to bed before Karen, which is odd for me. I had spent the early part of the evening packing for the college weekend and have the GMC Canyon packed.

This week has been all about busting butt on the conversion project. My first goal was to hit 60,000 in my music folder by 7/31/13 and when I hit that goal, I moved forward and started to whittle down the stacks of CDs I have in the den. I didn't do a good job with writing myself a note or in some other way indicating what the different stacks of CDs in the den mean - which stacks are "done" and which stacks are "not done" - so a lot of last night was putting in a CD, verifying that it had already been ripped, and moving on. The CDs I went through last night are in a plastic bag and I will remember that. I hope.

I just ran the DOS batch file: 60146 File(s)

Lou's Classic Ride rehearsal today from noon-ish until 2:30-ish. We are working on these songs:

1. Gimme 3 Steps
2. Switching to Glide
3. Mary Had a Little Lamb
4. Roadhouse Blues
5. Willie and the Hand Jive
6. I Shot the Sheriff
7. Basket Case

After rehearsal, I am picking up Karen from work by 3:20 and then heading north to Cresco. Busy day, busy weekend, but all fun.

Karen is Leaving / Proposal for Setlist on 8/24/13

There's a lot going on in my life.

• Karen and Alex are leaving today to go to Elkader. I am staying home to take Megan up tomorrow after she gets off work at 1. We are going to Ketelsen's to take back a cup holder for the chair I bought Karen because it didn't fit and getting some other miscellaneous supplies. We will be in Elkader in time for 5:30 Mass with Father Peters and then we are going to Gunder for a Gunderburger. I don't plan to eat anything after noon. I'm not sure what plans are being made for Sunday, but I know on Monday, Louie, Alex, and I are playing golf prior to heading back to home. I took Monday off as vacation. 
• As a side note, I have my mid-year review with my awesome manager on Tuesday at 9, which is immediately following our morning standup meeting at 8:30 AM. Work is going really well. We have the next version of the software going out on 8/23 (yes, the day before the gig) but the numbers for the release are not stellar. Basically, a lot of coding is behind schedule so it will be very interesting to see how the work that has been promised gets delivered by the promised date.
• Beyond that, next weekend is the Mount Mercy College Campout in Cresco. The plan is Alex and I will drive up on Friday night in order to go tubing on Saturday. I am looking forward to the weekend. Megan has inventory at Fareway so Karen is bringing her up after noon, when she gets off work. I took next Monday, 8/5, off as vacation.
• We have rehearsal today from noonish - 2:30-ish. We have to figure out what songs to play for the Saturday, August 24, 2013! I think we will have 8 total rehearsals (~20 hours) between now and the gig.  
• I sat at the Yamaha set last night for about 1 hour and, basically, I can never *EVER* go for nearly two weeks without playing drums again. I had not played since the gig 2 weeks ago and my shoulders, arms, and hands protested from the moment I tried to nail "Lonely Boy." After a couple of songs, it felt better, but today, prior to rehearsal, I'm doing some Ibuprofen for sure!

Loosely Ending the Tie

Saturday night, with the college group, was a lot of fun. Any preoccupation with sobriety melted away way before I was on the deck with the other four guys at Kevin's house. I had a good time. I think there's a lot to be said for the way the five of us are, as a group. It's special. It hasn't been about being the husbands of the wives that are friends for a long time - at least a dozen or so years. I wish we lived closer together so we could do more stuff more often.
I'm not sure what the title of this post means. It sounds like a 90s alternative band song title.

There We Are

This is what we look like - the college friends from Mount Mercy.

From left to right: Mark, LuAnn, Karen B, Jeff B, Karen (my wife), me, Nancy, Kevin, Denise, Brad.

We were in Cedar Falls to see Karen's brother's band play at the Hub. 

Out of Habit, Purely

Over the years, I have signed up to receive numerous emails about open technical writing positions. For a lot of the dozen years I worked in Cedar Rapids, I was on the look out for the perfect moonlighting gig. For a lot of years, I had that gig - it was documenting a "Horseman's Income Management and Record Keeping System." I wrote the online Help, first in WinHelp, then converted that help file to HTML, as well as a PDF of the same content. The last time I updated the documentation for this product was 2/8/2010 so, like my main employer for a dozen years, it has been a long time since the documentation for products I wrote about have been updated.

I think about all this when I saw an ad for a technical writer at a company I worked for - the hellhole company I don't mention by name. This is what was in my inbox yesterday from one of those "jobs" emails:

I just smirk when I see that. The actual job is not the one I did. It's for the job that a former co-worker did. I did software documentation and this job is more hardware-only documentation. I did a little of it and it was not all that much fun.

I think about how fortunate I am to be where I am in all areas of my life. This weekend is the College Friends Get-Together in Cedar Falls. Like last year, we are going to go see Karen's brother's band play at the Hub tomorrow night. I am looking forward to it.

College Friends

I've written before about the college friend get-together. This is us a week ago. From left to right: Karen B, Jeff B, Brad (in the back) Denise, Me (in the back), Karen (my wife) in front, Mark, LuAnn, Nancy, Kevin. We were in Cedar Falls to see Karen's brother's band play at the Hub.

Dateline Cresco, IA: Day 2 of 2

I really had a fun time last night. We went to dinner. I had a bacon cheeseburger and fries, washing it down with a couple of Blue Moon drafts. I suggested finding a pool table because, well, I like playing pool. We went to the bar next door. I scratched on the 8 ball on my first game, lost the second game as well as my third game. I had a couple of streaks where I thought I was going to do better than I did, but in all, it took until I challenged Denise before I actually won a game. The whole time this was happening, the music was playing great music and the beer flowed. I really enjoyed the night. It was a lot of fun.

Today, though, is another story. We pack up to go home and return to responsibility. I probably won't type again on this sweet Toshiba laptop for a long time. We need to get back home so we can go to Mass. Regina is producing "The Sound of Music" and depending upon the timing, Alex and I may go to the Newman Center for 4 PM Mass while Megan and Karen may go to the Newman Center 6 PM Mass. It all kind of depends upon when Alex gets home from the gun club with Bill, who is watching our kids this weekend with his wife Debbie.

Tomorrow begins the routine again. Megan has religious education class and Alex has drum lessons. Tuesday is Alex's next-to-final basketball game. Wednesday is Alex's tutor. Thursday, I would like to take Megan to a jazz band concert @ West High School. Friday is the men's CEW in Riverside and I need to go down after work and do some stuff. Saturday, it sounds like we will go down to Riverside and do some stuff with the CEW and go to Mass. Sunday, we will probably make another trip to Riverside to do some stuff, plus Alex has basketball practice. For a year where I am not really involved, it seems like I am involved.

Then the week starts over. Alex has a band concert on 3/8, a basketball game (final of the season) on Tuesday, tutor on Wed, and I think, going by memory, there is another band concert on Thursday. I think on that Friday, we may head up to Balltown for the weekend and then leave the kids there for Spring Break. That leads up to the week of 3/15 which I wrote about in yesterday's post.

I sometimes think that life is too damn busy. There is something happening every night and while it is all things that we have to do or need to do, I can't help feel like it's going way too fast. There are no spare moments in life. I'm not really doing more than observing life, it seems, because I don't feel like I can really enjoy life. That seems odd, in a way, because all the things I do or need to do are things that I had a role in planning, in some way. It's not like someone else is dictating, "you need to do this and that and this." I don't know if I can really explain it.

I do think that Megan is going to be in 8th grade next year and Alex in 6th. I think the next 7 years are going to fly by tremendously quick. In our college group, the oldest child is a sophomore in high school, the youngest is 4. That means the oldest child would be a freshman in college in 3 years. Where does the time go? Alex will graduate from high school in 7 years. Then he will be out of the house. I only have 7 more years to spend with my son where he is living in our house, then he will be on his own. My biggest hope for him is that my daily reminder to him to "make good choices" has 'stuck' to his brain and that he does make good choices. Megan, I have five years before my little girl graduates and moves on in the world.

I just want my life to continue as it is, with good health and good times. I am glad we purchased a camper because, hopefully, camping can continue to play a major role in what we do as a family. We have booked a month in Elkader and will spend seven weekends in Elkader. The first is June 12 for the Sigwarth campout. Then Father's Day. Then a little break until the 4th of July weekend. I hope we go to Balltown again for the fireworks at Breitbach's as they were really good last year. Then 3 more weekends in Elkader. Then a small break where we actually may be home for a weekend on August 7 (our wedding anniversary) then to Sugar Bottom for our college campout with the same group I spent this weekend with, except the kids will be with us. The following Thursday, 8/19, is when school starts. Then the ritual of all this nightly stuff happens will start up again, with religious education, drum lessons, basketball, tutor, and whatever else creeps in between now and then.

It's now 8 AM. I already used logmein.com to access my work PC to check for emergencies of which there were none. I think we are going to be getting on the road by 9 AM. Karen and everyone else in the house are still sleeping.

Dateline: Cresco, Iowa

I've written about the college weekend away previously and that's what is happening this weekend. I'm sitting in a living room in Cresco, IA, typing on a very sweet Toshiba laptop. The idea to get a laptop for Christmas has been floated and, if it was as cool as this one, it might be something I would be interested in.

Last night, the men sat in the basement and we watched "The Hangover" while the women stayed upstairs. It was a good night. We all cashed in @ 2 AM.

The drive up was good. I think it's good to spend quality time with Karen, talking. It sometimes seems like we don't have all that much time during a regular week to do so. I miss sharing that quality time with her and discussing things that are happening. Like, last night, we fleshed out more of the kids' schedule for Spring Break. They are going to spend at least part of it in Balltown. I think we will go up the weekend before and leave them there on Sunday when we come back to work. Both of us have to work all week.

Project A is a huge change that has to do with how our clients process something. We have to be certified by someone and then, after we deliver the software to our clients, the clients need to be audited and certified. The way this has to work is that it has to arrive on 3/12 (that Friday). Selfishly, that week (3/15) is going to be a very busy week at work. The timeline for testing and documenting the changes to the system have a two week window. There are consultants involved so it will be very important that everyone stays on-time.

Project B means a lot of work for me. It involves buckling down and writing some content that I have been procrastinating. It is not that the content is difficult to write - I think I could bang it out in a day - it's that I think it's overview material, about something stupid that no one is going to read. It's content that should be covered in a training class but since we don't really do training classes like we used to - clients seem to magically end up with a new system on their PCs - I understand I need to write the content. There is also a lot of project B that I need to write in other areas, besides the aforementioned overview. I am comfortable with where I am, but there are holes I need to fill in.

Project C involves doing the user interface work I do and making records that display in pink display, well, in pink. If you imagine a floor with a carpet. The programmers code the floor and I design the carpet that everyone sees. I don't know if that really makes sense or not. I had to submit a call report to the software vendor that makes the "carpet" because the obvious ways to make the records display in pink did not work.

Project D is also a user interface project. When you are in Add mode, F16 should never be enabled. However, if I set it up where F16 is disabled in Add mode, it is disabled in Change mode as well. I tried all the obvious, and not so obvious, things I know how to do but it didn't seem to work. I asked for a call from the vendor and I need to get that resolved.

Project E is a huge change to one of our systems. Not only are there going to be UI changes - the carpet - but there will also be a lot of documentation changes. I've come to the conclusion that while it is not scheduled for release until the April/May timeframe, I cannot delay working on it until then. This area of the system continually has smaller changes but this is a larger one. I am hoping my co-worker is available to take some of the documentation work off my plate. However, I know that she is busy too so that's kind of an on-going storyline.

So that's five projects that would normally weigh anybody down. It is common to be 'under' that much at work and have multiple priority #1 projects. I don't know, really, how much I will keep up with this blog as the weeks go on. Life at home is equally busy with religious ed, drum lessons, tutor, basketball game, and, of course, homework.

I did take my grandma's cactus to work this week. It was looking sickly in the den at home and I think it was because of not getting a lot of light. So I'm hoping between the artificial light in the building and some TLC, I can bring it back to health.

I think I don't have much more to say.

Catching Up...

Friday night, our wedding anniversary, did not go as planned. There was torrential rain and lightening and wind and it was not fun. If it wasn't for the fact that this storm arrived at 5 AM Saturday AM, it would have been our worst wedding anniversary ever. As it was, the sun dried every thing out, the college group went canoing, I was sober doing so and every thing went fine. On top of that, I only played one game of Euchre and my team won. We had brat burgers and hamburgers for supper, I ate two brat burgers, and my full stomach made me sleepy. The next thing I know, Karen is waking me up to go to bed. She woke up at 8 on Sunday AM and noticed the dark clouds so we quickly packed up the camper prior to going to eat in Cresco at 10. That turned out to be a good decision because while we were eating, it began to rain. Because we had hooked up the camper, we did not have to drive back to the campground and pack up in the rain.
We got home last night, fairly early, because I thought Immaculate Conception Sunday PM Mass was at 5, but it was really 5:30. Guess who arrived 30 minutes early? It was okay because we were able to say the rosary because a lady was leading it.
We got home, ordered pizza, and then the dark clouds and a storm came our way. As the storm hit our area, the Pizza Hut guy arrived. I tipped him $2 (instead of my usual $1) and we watched Bridezilla as we ate. Because of the storms, I didn't bother sitting at the PC.
Tonight, then, is a catch-up night. I watched WWE Raw (of course) so it's now 10:50. I need to register Alex for school, I need to find out more about the LAMB OF GOD show in Des Moines, IA, on Friday, October 9th - PLEASE, LET ME HAVE NOTHING PLANNED!!! - and I also need to get this blog caught up.
And the first way to do that is to listen to Zach Gill's "Don't Touch My Stuff"

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One of the kids on the Dudes has left the team because he was asked to play on another team. You wouldn't know him but he is a good player. I liked coaching him the last couple of years. I had visions of him being a leader for the team because it seemed like everyone likes him. As of now, I will be the assistant coach. I know we will be able to have a good season with the remaining players. We started to play well towards the end. I am hoping each member realizes that teamwork is the key and PASSING is the key to a good team.
So, yes, Lamb of God is playing in Des Moines on a Friday night. They are headlining 25 shows and opening 25 shows for Metallica on this tour. Unfortunately, the show in Des Moines is - and this is said as positive as possible - just them and Job for a Cowboy:

GROSS!!! Plus GWAR!!!

I don't know if I can tolerate Job for a Cowboy and GWAR...

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So let's pause a moment. I don't like Job for a Cowboy. But I like this song by Otep:

Fair? Does that make sense? No? Oh well...

Anniversary

16 years ago tonight, I was at my wedding rehearsal dinner. I was less than 24 hours from marrying Karen. 16 years later, we are together and happy. We leave Cedar Rapids at 4 tomorrow for our annual college camping trip. We do these twice a year with 4 other couples that went to Mount Mercy College together. In the summer, it's with kids - and there are more kids than adults - and in the winter, it's without the kids. It should be a good weekend, although there's a 70% chance of rain tomorrow. Hopefully, it's not raining when we're trying to set up the camper.

Sleeping In...

Today was my opportunity to sleep in. We have nothing going until 4:30 today, which is when we're hosting a pizza party for members of the CEW team @ our house. I expect around 20 people. We've cleaned the house and borrowed card tables and chairs and except for vaccuuming - my job - we have things in order.

The next few weeks, though, are very busy.

Monday: Alex piano @ 5:30 / Megan softball @ 6:00
Tuesday: Nothing
Wednesday: Megan piano @ 5:30
Thursday: Holy Thursday Mass @ 7:30 (I think I'm playing drums)
Friday: Leave for Balltown when I get off work @ 5. The kids are out @ noon.
Saturday: Holy Saturday Mass @ 8:00 in Sherrill
Sunday: Easter Sunday / Drive home

And then it starts all over again. As of now, we don't know when Alex's baseball practice will be so that is not scheduled below.

4/18, CEW meeting in Waterloo in the AM so I have to leave ~7:30.

4/22, Bayside concert in Des Moines, IA, with my friend Chris.

4/25, my nephew's 1st Communion in Cedar Falls.

5/2, my nephew's 1st Communion in Chicagoland.

5/9, Mother's Day weekend. Megan may be going on a band trip to Adventureland and, rumor has it, I am going to be one of the Dad chaperones.

5/16, I think we will get the camper from storage in Zhwingle and (probably) spend the weekend in Balltown. (Not sure about that.)

5/23, Memorial Day weekend.

5/30, packing for June 3, 2009.

6/3, we are leaving for my cousin's son's wedding in South Dakota.

6/12, Sigwarth campout in Elkader. I am off work 6/3-6/12 so I'd like to get up to Elkader 6/11 and play golf on 6/12. Depends upon when we get back from vacation.

6/19 - 6/27 - nothing scheduled. We haven't decided if we are going to spend them in Elkader or not. 6/26 is the outdoor Heart concert @ the Riverside casino (all ages) and tickets are $35.

7/2-7/5 4th of July weekend. I am on vacation 7/2 & 7/3 and the 4th is on Saturday.

I actually have nothing scheduled on any day in July. Baseball/softball will be over but to say we'll be bored is not based in reality.

August 1st is a wedding in Des Moines.

August 7-9 is the college campout.

August 10th-August 12th is client conference

Megan turns 13 on 8/14.

School starts 8/20, the same day as Algona Rock Fest in Algona.

Regina Fall Fun Festival is 9/4 and, probably, the Sunday after that, Dudes basketball practice will start up again.

And then... and then....

So, today was my last morning to sleep in for several mornings and I chose to hop on the PC and blog. I am sick.

Monday Again

I missed my 20 year high school reunion this last weekend. I'm sure it was fun for all those that went and I might have had fun if I had gone - I allow for that.

Instead, it was our annual summer camping trip with our Mount Mercy College friends. We get together twice a year - in the winter without kids and in the summer with kids. I am close to all of the adults in our group. I have fun with the kids. I told all of them before they left "Listen to your mom, listen to your dad, don't fight with your brother(s) and sister(s), and keep your room clean b/c you never know when I'll show up."

Today, Monday, it was back to work. It was the first day of our Client Conference and for being an introvert who enjoys his job b/c I can sit and write and listen to music all day, I made it a point to step out of my comfort zone and talk to clients. The conversations I struck up were worth the effort. I am at the conference tomorrow, but not on Wednesday, which is when the CEO is going to talk about the future of the company. Hmmm. I will reach my decade of service to this company on 10/1.

Megan turns 12 on Thursday. She is getting her ears pierced and I'm having absolutely nothing to do with that. Karen's parents are coming down to go out to supper. Everyone but me will go to Mass for the Assumption Holy Day but I'll go @ noon in Cedar Rapids on Friday.

Friday night, my neighborhood is having an impromptu end of the summer party. We're going to put our fire pit in our neighbor's driveway, put some chairs around it, and drink beer (except Margaret and anyone else who doesn't want to or can't - like the kids). I'm looking forward to it. With the beautiful evenings we've been having, it's been hard to stay focused on what needs to be done inside - like laundry - when we could be outside talking to the neighbors. Our neighbor's 6 month old son Jaryn smiles every time I look at him and, I admit, that's addictive to see a baby smile like that.

I finished mowing the neighbor's yard and started/finished our yard.

Paul