Again?

Yeah... So, it's official.. I only blog when I travel. Guess what that means? I am traveling right now. Where am I now??

Well, I am in a part of the country that is having severe thunderstorms, amazing lightning and possible tornado's in the area... Dallas, TX...

This is my third trip to Dallas in the past few months. I enjoy the travel, but it is increasingly difficult as of late. What makes it particularly difficult is that the rest of my work does not go away when I travel (Remember, I am doing two people's jobs right now). Add in a couple of high priority issues we have had this week and you get a recipe for a mess.... I am tired and beat lately. I am really praying for some relief soon. It's hard to face each day...

The best part about all of this though is that no matter how hard the stress may be, I can find REST in my Lord! It is so wonderful to read the Word right now and talk to God right now and sing... It doesn't mask the stress or even get rid of it all, but it helps to know where my faith is. It helps to know that this is all temporary!

Toto and Dorthy

Toto and Dorthy did not have problems getting out of Kansas, but I did... Well, I am having problems getting out. The flight coming from Charlotte yesterday was delayed due to a small pox scare (see links below). So, I got a free meal and an extra night stay from US Air... Let's see if I can make it home today...

Small Pox 1
Small Pox 2

Ummm... Toto?

So... For some reason, the only time I think to blog now is when I am traveling... So, here I am again.

Tiffany is presently in Arizona visiting her family. She is having a great time and I am jealous to say the least. So, I managed to score a couple more trips out of town to stay busy (Not that I need any help- I am presently doing the job of two people).

Today, I took the 6am flight out of Richmond and flew to Charlotte, NC. Once in Charlotte, I quickly made my way to the other end of the airport (Picking up a Jamba Juice on the way) only to find out that my plane to Kansas City had been delayed. Well, we eventually got on the airplane only to find out that there were 20 other planes in front of us (Which is not normal for Charlotte). Well, we eventually pulled out on the runway only to find out that there was a mechanical problem with the plane. So, they took us back to the gate (But didn't let us off the plane) and fixed the problem. OK... Eventually, I wound up in Kansas City. But, they did not have a car in my class... But, they did have a Jeep Wrangler to upgrade me to!

See, if I had arrived earlier, I would have wound up with something less wonderful than the Jeep... Of course, if I had gone to Arizona instead, I would have a tan right now... =)

This trip is actually going to be a quick one. I will be back home by tomorrow night. The good news is that we are finally getting the proper processes and procedures in place to install and certify these systems quickly. As a reward for this new found success, I get to go to Boston and Dallas again within the next two weeks.

Whew... Talk about a crash course education. My head feels like its full. I think stuff is starting to spill out the back. No, really... Does somebody have a plug?

Change for dollar?

Hmmm... It looks like it has been a while since I last posted... Let's see, has anything changed since Dallas? Yup! February 2007 will go down in history as being one of the fastest and most crazy months of my life!

I spent two weeks of February in training. The training took place in Reston, Virginia. As a result of this training, I now have two more certifications to tack on my name- TCTA and TCTE. What do they mean? TCTA is Tandberg Certified Technical Associate and TCTE is Tandberg Certified Technical Expert... A mouthful for sure and a ton of fun!

In the process of enjoying the two classes, I got food poisoning- Yeah! At the same time, my co-worker/mentor decided to move on to another company. What does that mean for me? MORE WORK and a ton of change! The range of emotions from this change have been varied. Sometimes, I think I can conquer the world and do both my job and his job. Other times, I feel overwhelmed and beat down.

I have been trying to focus though on something that does not change... Life can change fast and it can be seriously uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I want to remain optimistic and hopeful. But my hope and optimism is not some false feel good move to make it through the day or cope. I have hope in Lord! My hope in the Lord is sure and firm. It's not false or fickle. He doesn't promise that life will be easy, but He does promise to be with us. I am choosing to be faithful at work and work as hard as I can and leave the rest up to Him. I could choose to give up and walk away, but that is not the choice that I want to make. I have more to learn in this position and I am learning it for a larger purpose.

Change is part of growth and growth requires change. God is preparing Tiffany and I for something. We do not know what it is, but we know that changes like this and difficult times are part of the process.

I have been teaching Sunday School lately and we have been talking about growing and changing. It is fun to teach 7th, 8th, 9th graders some of the very lessons that I am trying to apply to my own life. It makes it so much more real.

Another area of change was noticed this past weekend. We drove down to Winston-Salem to visit friends from college. During this one weekend, we found out that two of our friends are pregnant now, another couple has choosen a mission field to serve on and yet another couple is leaving for the mission field next month. Seeing life changes in our friends causes us to ask questions and wonder what is next in our lives...

Change comes quickly. We are choosing to find our rest in the One that does not change....

Professional Traveler

I think I am officially a pro at traveling...

I am sitting in Dallas right now installing and certifying yet another video conferencing system. This installation has gone fairly well and has been fun to work on.

Tiffany also came to Dallas with me for the week. She has been learning the DART system well and has been able to get around and see some of Dallas.

It seems odd to me, but it is presently snowing here. I though Texas was supposed to be warm? Of course, I am not surprised now, especially knowing the fact that Phoenix, AZ had ice last week... Wow....

Flying to Dallas, I was able to experience something new, I flew direct from Richmond to DFW. That was my first time on a direct flight! It was nice to not have a connection.

My rental car has the NeverLost system in it.... Guess what? It got me lost... Not once, but twice so far. Normally, I print of directions to everything and have lots of maps, but it has been nice telling my GPS what to do and where to go. The voice is a little annoying at times... We call her "Betty."

Well, it is time for some lunch now and I am hungry!

Out of BETA?!

Wow... This is new.. Google has moved Blogger out of BETA. Google likes to cook its beta projects for a long time (An excellent idea I might add). I decided to upgrade this particular blog to see how smooth the process was and I must say I am very happy!

The biggest improvement is the flexibility of the templates (A needed improvement).

Thanks Google!!

Ahhh... Flying Again

The past couple months have been busy... Ok. No realy surprise there, so I am not going to belabor that point.

At the end of December, Tiffany and I flew to Arizona for Christmas. We had a great time visiting family and relaxing for a while. I few back earlier than Tiff since I was out of vacation time. Tiff was able to stay for a few extra days.

Arizona was actually on the cool side while we were there. In fact, it was warmer back home than it was in Phoenix... Go figure.

Speaking of warm.. Yesterday, January 6, 2007 it almost hit 80 degrees in RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.... That's right.. Our little old Richmond was gorgeous. We took advantage of the day and walked on the flood wall. BTW, the flood wall is a must see in Richmond. I cannot believe we have missed it all of these years.

Right now, I am sitting in the Richmond airport. I am flying to San Fransisco today for business. It's nice to fly when the tab is on somebody else! This increased travel comes with the increasing responsibility I am coming into at work. Everyday is a different day and I am loving it. I have learned so much over the past year and I am glad that it is paying off.

Not so fun...

Tiffany was involved in a 3 car accident a few days ago. The person in front of her stopped on the interstate. As a result, Tiff rear ended the car and in turn was rear ended by a car behind her. Tiffany walked away from the accident with some bruises and soreness, but she was ok otherwise. The car, on the other hand, will not survive (It looks pretty bad).

It was very scary when I received the call from her. She had just dropped me off at work and I rushed to the scene with a guy from work. It was terrible getting through the traffic to get to my wife. I felt desperate and helpless. When I got to the scene, I rushed up to Tiff and held her close...

It is times like these that remind me what is important in life.... But I should not wait for times like these. It is scary to think about the accident and see the scene in my head. It is scary to think about what could have happened. The fact remains though- God is in control! He has a reason for this accident. He has a reason for totaling the car that we just bought... The questions should not be, "Why did you do this God?" Instead, the question should be, "How can we use this to glorify God?"

Happenings as of Late

It has been a while since I made a post to the blog... Primarily, there has not been anything exciting to report. That being said, would you like to know what we have been doing?

Well, we traveled up to New York for Thanksgiving. On the way up, we picked up my mom. About 30 miles from my brothers house, our car died... The good news is that we were at the right exit, so we pulled off into a BP station. Upon examination, I discovered that the belt had come off the car. I called my brother and he came to the rescue. When he looked at it, the belt was ok, but the pulley had given up the ghost.

We left the car for the day and enjoyed the rest of Thanksgiving with Mom, my brother and my sister in law. It was a nice day and good to be with family.

The next day, my brother and I traveled back to the car and discovered... Just kidding.. The car was fixed in about 5 minutes. My brothers mechanical skills came to the rescue.

On Friday, Tiffany and I spent some time with a friend of mine from high school. It was great hanging out and catching up on Trumansburg news as of late. It is so much fun getting together with friends... Especially when you have not seen each other in years.

With the cold weather starting in Central Virginia, we are getting excited about our Christmas trip to Arizona. Tiffany's parents moved to Phoenix this year so we decided to have a warm Christmas (Not as warm as last years, but still nice).

Oh yeah... One bit of exciting news is that we had to replace our cell phones last week (They were getting a bit on the old side....). Upon further examination, we discovered that the best deal was the MotoRazr V3M... So, that is what we bought (After rebates, etc. they will wind up being FREE).

Well, I better put my nose back on the grind stone now so I can continue Getting Things Done...

Richmond Flood!

Wow! We had quite a flood last week here in Richmond. We had a ton of rain on November 16th. It was also very windy that day which added to the problem. The wind caused most of the leaves to fall out of the trees. Coupled with the extra water from the rain, we had perfect conditions for floods and flash floods. I was able to leave work early that day, so I decided to drive around to the low areas I knew of and take some pictures. I have posted them on Flickr under the "Weather" section of our page.

Water is amazing and this flooding was also amazing. I am glad I was able to capture some of it in pictures. I was not able to get down to the city of Richmond though. I understand that there was some pretty major flooding down there.

Hershey, PA

Tiffany and I own with Bluegreen Vacation Club. We recently discovered a resort they own in Hershey, PA. After doing a quick search, we realized that Hershey was closer than we thought. So, we packed our bags and headed up to Hershey on November 9 (Just a few days after getting back from Toronto). We had a great weekend relaxing and taking in the touristy destinations (Minus the theme park as it was closed). It is nice to be able to get away for a weekend once in a while. It helps set work aside and relax.

We had some friends join us on the trip and that always adds to the fun!

On the way home, we stopped in Maryland to see my mom. We called her when we were at her exit to tell her we wanted lunch! See was surpised and happy to see us.

Another Trip to Toronto

I had the pleasure of traveling to Toronto again at the beginning of this month. I traveled for business this time as we were installing a new videoconferencing room in the city. The best part about the trip was the evening I got to take the client out to dinner. My company had me take the client and the installation team to the 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower. The food was pretty good, but the view was spectacular! The restaurant rotates once every 72 minutes. Final bill: $475 (For four people!)

Toronto is a great city and I am glad that I was able to travel there for work. I might be going again early in 2007. We will be moving a bunch of systems to a new building a few blocks away, so it will be a fairy major project! I hope I can go and bring Tiff with me.

Dilbert Has a Voice!

I have grown to love the Dilbert comics over the past year or so... Mainly because they are incredibly true in a twisted sort of way.

About 18 months ago, the creator of Dilbert lost his ability to speak. This month, he regained his ability to speak and has a very interesting post about it on his blog.

Stories like this just go to prove how amazingly intricate the human body is... God has created an amazing thing in us and this proves it. This story is so interesting to me.

Orbiting the Giant Getting Things Done Ball...

(Please note: I began writting this a couple months back. I had a lot on my mind and heart and the time and I still feel it is important to post this now)

I have been learning a lot about myself and this world lately. Due to my desire to not sit still, I have experienced just about every piece of the VTC team at work. By constantly raising my hand and wanting to be involved, I have been able to experience more than my job description allows. Management has gone along with it for want of seeing work get done and lack of people wanting to get involved. The other day, a colleague handed me a book by Gordon MacKenzie titled "Orbiting the Giant Hairball." I was immediately engrossed in the book and I was not sure why. About half way through the book, I began to understand something about myself that I had not been able to articulate until now.

I have always had this unsettled feeling about the future. Where am I going? What am I doing? What steps need to be taken? But I constantly read that I should be entrusting my ways to the Lord and letting him direct my paths. I like that! But at the same time, not having direction has made me uncomforatble. Probably because we all have this comfort zone in the Hairball and want to feel secure in what is known. Pressure comes from all sides to make decisions and choose a path. Fit this mold. Do this. Don't do this. But I have this nagging feeling that there is more to life.

True, it is important to have some form and structure (We have a whole Bible filled with it), but there is the creative and artistic side that we tend to avoid (The Bible was also filled with that). Where am I going with this? Spirit of the Law, not letter of the law....

God has created each one of us with a mind to think. To grow. To be creative. Look at His creation! Amazing! Beautiful! Creative.... He didn't design robots to fit a certain mold. He didn't create the mindless machine of a corporation. He created beauty and intelligence. It fits within certain guidelines, true, but there is a freedom within it. We call it "Christian Liberty" or something like that. Nevertheless, it too has some guide posts, but is largely free. We squeeze into these boxes and follow steps in life. Go to college. Climb the ladder. And above all else, do NOT color outside the lines.

As I look back over my life, I can honestly say that I have not colored inside the lines (Most of time). My life has not been normal (If there is such a thing). I do know though that I am right where God wants me right now. How did I get here though? I could write a whole book tracing backwards and would still come up with the same questions. I took risks, I followed my heart which was guided by my mind and God. Luck? Chance? No way! God has a plan and He will see it through the end! I know that God wants to use me and He wants me to glorify Him. That's why He created me- To glorify Him. The best part about glorifying God is that it is incredibly fun! Sure, it gets hard at times and there are some bumps in the road, but it is awesome overall.

Life is too short on this earth and I do not intend to sit still and let it pass me by. I want to glorify God and have a great time doing it too. I want to get things done for the Lord and see His kingdom grow. If I choose not to be part of that, I will miss out on the greatest joy of life. God's work will be done whether I choose to help or not. I'm diving in! I want to paint a masterpiece for God with this canvas of life he has given to me! Who am I? I am a child of God, placed on this earth for such a time as this. My interests are varied and change often. I have a desire to gather information and process it. When it all comes to an end though, the only part of my life that will carry on is what yielded true value. I want to get things done that glorify God. As a result, I will live a rich life of joy and satisfaction. At the same time, God will be pleased with His investment!

Major Update to TheSnoopyPenguin.org

It has been a long time since we made a major update to our webpage. A couple of weeks ago, I decided that it was time to get down to business and update the page. What you will now see is a CSS based page that rocks! It looks great and will grow quickly. The pages fit well together and provide an excellent framework for what is to come: TheSnoopyPenguin.org

CVE

I just posted an article on our main page about becoming a Certified Videoconferencing Engineer. Since it is technology related material, I have crossposted to the technology section of our blog. Exciting stuff happening!!

Certified Videoconferencing Engineer

Well, after a couple of years of waiting, I am finally a Certified Videoconferencing Engineer (CVE)!!! The additional letters on my name will be nice, but the knowledge gained from this experience is even better. I have learned a ton about video, audio, networking and standards. Sure, the experience I have gained from day-to-day work has been great, but the cohesive bonding of the CVE course and exam has helped solidify what I have learned. It is great to see how this certification has and will directly affect my job as an infrastructure engineer! On top of that, I look forward to what the Lord has in store. I really want to use this for the Lord and we are very eager to see what lies ahead!

Goodbye Newsgator... Hello Google Reader!

I think that the time has come...

I have been an avid user of the Newgator online RSS reader for quite some time now (Maybe as long as a year). It has been my one stop shop for all of the latest on the internet. In fact, I use it so much that I have it burned in my brain to visit http://mail.yahoo.com and then http://www.newsgator.com... I almost type the two addresses as one.

When Google first came out with Google reader, I did not really like it (And I love Google). Yesterday, Google gave me what I wanted and updated the google reader. It now has the features that I have longed for. The main feature that I wanted was the ability to mark an item as read (As if it were email)... After playing around with the reader today, I believe that I may be switching from Newsgator to Google Reader. I will keep both running for a while and see which one I like the best. First impression- Google rocks!

Silicon Valley, California

Tiffany and I are settling back into real life this week after a visit to San Jose, California last week.

Our adventures began on Saturday, September 16 with separate flights to San Jose. My flights were all messed up going to California, so our luggage also got messed up... I think it finally arrived Sunday afternoon (Note to self: Never fly through Chicago again... Oh, never fly United either).

When we arrived in California, our "son" met us. Mark is a long time friend from college and he flew himself up from the LA area to spend Sunday with us. We call him our son because he practically lived with us for a year during college.. Good times!

Sunday morning, we took a trip on the Roaring Camp Railroad! We rode an old Shay Steam Locamotive up into a mountain filled with giant redwood trees. We will post pictures on Flickr shortly. After riding the railroad, we drove up the coast to San Francisco! We drove down the famous Lombard street, walked around the touristy places and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge... Again, I will post pictures soon.

Monday morning put a stop to the tourism as I began my week long intensive study of Polycom Certified Video Engineer training... The course is very intense but wonderful. While I was in training, Tiffany spent time in and around San Jose. She had a great time and did not want to leave.

Since we were in Silicon Valley, we made sure to visit a few of my favorite places: Google, Yahoo, Intel, Apple, etc... Those pictures will also be posted soon!

Friday evening, before getting a couple hours of sleep and flying home, we drove to San Luis Obispo to see my step brother and his wife (JT and Demetria). We had a great time with them and caught up on a few years worth of information (Yeah, time travels WAY too fast around here).

Once again, our luggage was lost on the way back from California, but it arrived shortly before I had to pick Tiff up from the airport.

Now we get to settle back into life and the rush. Hopefully, I will be able to take my cerification test soon and add "CVE" to my list of accomplishments. I am very excited about this certification as it is very comprehensive in the video conferencing world. It also comes at a good time and coincides with my recent promotion.

Well, time to get back to the grind stone!

Promotion

I received a pleasant surprise at work on Friday, September 8th. A few posts back, I mentioned how busy we have been. Well, it has paid off at work. I was promoted to the position of Infrastructure Engineer/Project Coordinator!!

I am very excited about this new position as it gives me an opportunity to continue learning and developing skills. At the same time, I am in a position that places me on the cutting edge of video conferencing and audio/visual. I am not sure what my full responsibilities will be at this point, but I do know it will be fun! This is the height of geekdom for me!

I cannot help but praise the Lord for how he has been working in our lives. He is teaching us so much lately and opening doors that we would have never imagined. This new position will give me skills and experience that I hope we can use for the Lord.

I look forward to the new challenges that are ahead!