Christmas Memories

Well... There it goes... Another Christmas in the history books of life.

I really enjoyed the lead up to Christmas this year. I bombarded myself with Christmas music, was busy at church with activity and patiently waited for my Nintendo Wii that sat in a closet for the past month.

Christmas day was great too. We spent the entire day playing the Wii as a family. We ate Mexican food for dinner. We helped Pacey put his Lego airport and jet together. We enjoyed the sun being out (Even though it was a very windy day). At the end of the day, we were happy and tired.

The rememberance of Christ's birth was particularly strong this year. I really tried to concentrate on it personally and remember His birth and what it means to me. God became a man to live like a man and die like a man. God chose to become like me so He could wash away my sins and have eternal fellowship with me... Wow...

Windows Server 2008

My company purchased a very nice computer for some testing I am doing. Right now, the computer is running Vista Ultimate on 4GB of RAM and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ (Roughly 2.30 GHz). I have Virtual Server 2005 R2 running a few virtual machines. The first virtual machine is Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. The second virtual machine is Windows XP Media Center Edition. Today, I am adding a third machine to the mix: Windows Server 2008 RC! I purchased an Intel Quad Ethernet card for the computer. With the card, I am able to assign an individual ethernet cable to each virtual machine (I had to mess around with settings of each port to be able to assign them to an individual VM).

Man... I am such a geek! I love technology!

When I am done, I will have 4 computers running in one box... How cool is that?!

Vegas Vacation

This past weekend was my 27th birthday. Tiffany and I took off Friday and spent the weekend in Las Vegas, NV. We are part of the Bluegreen Vacation Club and were able to stay in Vegas for CHEAP! The drive was nice and included a trip accross the Hoover Dam.

Most of our time was spent walking around to see everything- Trust me, we walked a lot! We also visited the Stratosphere and saw a great view of the city. On the way home, we visited the Hoover Dam for a while (Amazing!).

We had a great time and hope to visit again (We may actually have a couple opportunities in 2008 due to conferences).

Christmas Gift from Blockbuster

Tiffany and I have been fans of Blockbuster Total Access for a while now. We originally used Netflix until Blockbuster came out with a deal that blew Netflix away... We were paying 17.99/month, got 3 movies at a time, could exchange them in the store for a few movie, plus, we got one free GAME or movie per month. It was a steal. A few months ago, Blockbuster decided to change the plan on everybody. OK. So now we could only exchange 5 movies per month and we no longer got the free game. Well, Blockbuster, who is failing miserably, has given us a Christmas gift. Now, we get to pay $2 more per month for the same service. Some people are paying even more! On top of that, half the movies that we have in the queue have had "long wait" listed next to them for months now....

Sorry Blockbuster, but I think Netflix has won back my business. Netflix has the leg up now. We can get 3 movies at a time for $3 less than Blockbuster. On top of that, we can watch movies over the internet. Since we have a great internet connection and decent monitors, this will be good. Sure, we do not get to go into Blockbuster now to trade DVD's, but that's ok... It will save on gas! =)

November Happenings

Well, there goes November... Right out the door...

Thanksgiving was very nice this year. Not just because I got two days off of work (Although it was very nice), but because it is always a great time to stop and give thanks. Although the story of the first Thanksgiving is always questioned, the truth remains that we are a very blessed nation and people and should always thank or Lord and Creator for what He has done for us.

November was also the beginning of long practices for the annual Dinner Theater at our new church. Most of the family is involved in one fashion or another this year. We have spent many hours at church lately preparing for the event. Tiffany is singing in the choir for the event and I am running a spot light. The drama portion of the event is great. We are praying that people will come to know the Lord as a result of this event and Christmas season.

Finally, I spent a few days in Virginia earlier this week. I have been working on a large project for some time now and this trip to Virginia helped move the project forward. I am very excited to be in my present role and the opportunities that are being presented. I pray that the Lord will continue to help me grow in my technical skills and professional skills.

December is going to be crazy.... Dinner Theater... Birthday trip to Las Vegas... Christmas.... Plans for a new year... Here we go!

RAIN!!!

AHHHHH!!!! It has been a scary sight to see the past two days. We have received a TON of rain. Since moving to Phoenix, Arizona, we have not see it rain yet. I was beginning to think that rain did not exist in this part of the US. Boy was I wrong! Aparently, this has been the single largest precipitation event in 10 years for the valley. Yesterday, it practically rained non stop for the entire day. Today, we had some strong busts of rain and wind during the day.

We are not allowed to talk about the frozen form of rain, but I heard that there is some on the ground just a couple hours North of here... =) I cannot wait to see the Grand Canyon with white on it!

At any rate, I figured rain in Phoenix was a blog worth event... The cold front pushing it was something too since it is about 50 degrees outside right now... Brrrr... Cold and rain... Yuck!