Category: Life

Life has been very wild lately. They say time flies when you’re having fun, I say time really flies when you’re working your butt off. Actually, that’s not exactly what I say, but this is a family website.

Work is just crazy this time of year. The problem with being the boss is I can’t just point the finger at someone else any more. If something is broken, it’s up to me to get it done. Hopefully I haven’t screwed up too much.

Now that the students are back in school, things should calm down at work. We’re not there yet, but I’m hoping we’ll get caught up sometime next week.

The school district bought me a new laptop a few weeks ago. Yes, it’s a MacBook Pro. It’s amazing what a faster computer does for my productivity. I can’t say enough good things about it.

I should have a little more spare time since I’m not teaching a class this year. At the end of school last year I had 9 students signed up. I didn’t like teaching in the afternoon, so I asked to have my class moved to before lunch.

Out of the 9 signed up last year, only 4 could be in the class 3rd period and 1 of those took it last year. I just couldn’t justify giving up over an hour a day for 3 students. Hopefully I won’t regret this later.

I’m going to try to start updating my other blogs regularly. Everything has basically taken a two month break. If you’re into paying off your debt or programming games, check them out.

I’ll also upload some more recent pictures of Matthew soon. I don’t carry pictures in my wallet, instead I just point people to this site. Unfortunately all of the pictures here are months old now.

I have a new favorite word — speach.

I actually typed it that way a few minutes ago and I had to read it several times before I noticed anything was wrong. Of course it looks ridiculous now, but at the time it looked correct.

So if I’ve ever typed a message to you and used the word speach, just assume that I meant giving a speech while eating a peach.

Here’s one reason why I haven’t been posting very much on this site lately:

Back in March my boss announced his retirement. A month or so later, his job was posted on our employment opportunities page.

I turned in my resume for the job around the first of May along with a few other people from outside the district. I interviewed for the position last Monday.

This morning, the school board held a special meeting to discuss several personnel items. During the meeting I was officially employed as Technology Director.

I finally got around to uploading the pictures I took of Leia in her prom dress over a week ago.

Click the picture above to see all five pictures. I would’ve taken more, but she was running late and didn’t really want to stand still.

Check back tomorrow to find out why it took me so long to get these uploaded…

We spent all day yesterday working in the kitchen. We pulled off all the cabinet doors, sanded them down, primed everything, painted everything (twice), and finally put all of the doors back on with new hardware.

We didn’t take any before pictures, but here are some after pictures.

 

Matthew seems to like it.

Back on March 28 I decided to stop eating beef. That decision was mostly brought on by this quote:

If you’re worried about getting cancer, do yourself a favor: steer clear of red meat and rich foods, and avoid cigarettes.

Robert A. Weinberg, MIT Center for Cancer Research

I remembered reading 30 Days to Success by Steve Pavlina and decided to try going without beef for 30 days and see how it went.

I did slip a few times – on April 6 I went to a meeting with free pizza. I grabbed a few slices (1 hamburger and 1 pepperoni) and ate them before I even thought about it. I’ve had pepperoni pizza one more time since then. I’ve also had two muffaletta sandwiches (I miss Central Grocery…) in the last few weeks, but I’m not really sure if they had beef on them or not.

Anyway, it’s been over 30 days now and I can honestly say I haven’t noticed much of a difference. When I cut out Dr Pepper and sweet tea from my diet I noticed an immediate change – I lost about 10 pounds in 2 weeks.

Back then I replaced all that sugar water with just water. In this case, I’ve replaced all of the beef with chicken, pork, and seafood. I’ve also eaten several diffent kinds of meat substitutes (Garden Burgers, etc.), but we were eating these before.

I plan on sticking with this new diet as long as I can (forever?). I’m also going to try to replace more of what I used to eat with fruits and vegetables. I don’t think I’ll ever become a full vegetarian, but eating more vegetables couldn’t hurt.

I read this one on somebody’s weblog today, but I can’t remember where.

How many kids with ADD does it take to change a light bulb?

I don’t know, how many?

Let’s ride bikes!

I think it’s probably more funny when I tell it in person. At least Paige thought it was funny when I told it to her. But, I guess she’s obligated to laugh since we’re married…

I tried to use my house key to unlock the door at the high school today. I was about to be late for my class so I was probably rushing just a bit.

Luckily, a student came running out the door just as I was trying to go in. After I dodged him and his giant backpack I caught the door and went in.

Just in case anyone’s wondering – the days when students would open the door for a teacher are long gone…

Maybe it’s just because it’s late at night and I’m tired, but this quote seems to really speak to me right now:

Obstacles are what you see when you turn your eyes away from the goal.

– Joseph Cossmann

What do you think?

It’s hard to believe that I’m back at work.

Well, not really. I’m sitting at my desk, staring at my laptop, with the server humming over in the corner. It would be harder for me to believe I’m anywhere else. I guess it’s just hard to believe that spring break is already over.

South-by-Southwest was great. I’ll try to post a full update later today covering everything I saw. In the mean time, I did take a few pictures while I was there. You can see of few of my pictures at Flickr.com.

Also, they’ve posted audio from a few of the sessions. The Opening Remarks by Jason Fried and Jim Coudal are worth the download, as well as Jason Kottke and Heather Armstrong’s Keynote Conversation.