.: bistan.net :.

So I looked at the calendar yesterday . . . and it’s August? 2009?  Where does the time go?

Instead of apologizing for not posting in the last week or so, I’ll just tell you what I’m up to now:

Tuesday we are headed to Six Flags.  We only go when we have free tickets because it sort of sucks.  We scored two free tickets off of mycokerewards.com and bought a $15 ticket for Tristan off of a twitter special.  Mackenzie has been taught that being two at Six Flags and WDW saves Daddy lots of money and I think she’s OK with that.

Thursday my boy starts kindergarten.  25 years ago, that was ME starting kindergarten, but the blur between then and now called life happened so here we are.  He’s going to the same elementary school that I went to and believe it or not, there are a lot of teachers still there . . . including my 1st and 3rd grade teacher and the principal!

Work is hell. School starting back is enough, but over then summer there has been over $1,000,000 worth of construction in our building and the technology that comes with that isn’t just going to happen by itself.  On top of that we are suppose to have a new website (first time in 5 years) by September and our web developer conveniently quit in June.  That leaves me working literally 7 days a week, sometimes around the clock.  This weekend was spent getting familiar with Drupal, our chosen (but not my me) CMS.

My half-marathon training plan is on.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I’ve been sick pretty much all week, but I don’t have a choice except to keep going.  I went 120 hours without drinking coke, which was a major feat for me!

Also, classes start back for me in a few weeks for that stupid graduate program I put myself into.  This semester I dropped everything but one class so that I can deal with all of the above.  I’ll be taking a class that deals with artificial intelligence in game programming (fuzzy logic, probability, and a few other things I could spell out here to make myself sound smarter).

So obviously, I’m still working on “getting all of my ducks in a row”.  (That’s Rachel’s phrase.)  And when I do . . . this blog will be BACK!

The past few weeks have been so busy!

We enjoyed our trip to Colorado. While we were gone, temperatures in Macon reached 102 but in Boulder the high was only 75 on the same day. Boulder is the healthiest city in the country and bike and pedestrian trails were everywhere! If only Macon could do something similar.

We travelled to Rocky Mountain National Park — perhaps the most beautiful place that I’ve ever been to. We drove up Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved road in the country — 12,000 feet above sea-level. At that altitude — even in June — there was six feet of snow remaining on the ground. The wind was blowing 40 mph and the high temperature for that day and location was 48 — much better than the 102 that Macon was experiencing! Of course, none of us had ever seen six feet of snow, so we stopped for a while to play around in it. As usual I had sandals on and couldn’t really feel my toes after a few seconds but it was a blast!

We also visited Columbine High School and Jon Benet Ramsey’s final home. Morbid? Perhaps, but I won’t digress into the “American history or pop-culture” argument that I had with a co-worker.

When I returned to work the following week, we basically were given a blank check to purchase whatever technology we wanted. You just have to love that end-of-the-year spending! The kids had a week of vacation bible school and then two weeks of swimming lessons. Mackenzie celebrated her third birthday. And I neglected to blog about any of it. I’ll add some photos over the next few days of Colorado, swimming, the birthday, etc.

I’ve also had two freelance web projects in the past few weeks, one of which I’m wrapping up today. After doing web stuff all day for pay, blogging hasn’t really appealed to me.

I’ve also come up with an ingenious hustle. I’ve been making about $100 bucks a month for doing pretty much nothing! This isn’t a work-at-home pyramid scheme, but more of a “Jonathan is outsmarting the system” scheme. Nothing illegal of course, but it certainly falls into the “It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” category. I may blog more details soon, but I think that if too many people get in on it than there is less reward for me (not that anyone is reading this blog anymore anyway).

Tomorrow we head out again . . . this time to New Orleans, Louisiana. Kimberlie has NDT training at a hospital there and I plan to tag along and explore the city with the kids. That should be interesting considering that New Orleans is not exactly the most kid-friendly place around. I’m sure I’ll have some blogging time while I’m there.

When you see this many posts on my blog, that means I’m procrastinating.  I have a huge project due tonight at midnight and I’m avoiding doing it.  Its a database design project.  The design is done, but the report that I have to submit is not.  I would rather watch paint dry.

For the next six days, I’ll be blogging (or not) from Boulder Colorado.  I’m a speaker at the CALI (Computer Aided Legal Instruction) conference.  Its pretty much a conference for folks who do technology work at law schools.  This is my third time going.  In 2007 it was in Las Vegas and last year it was in Baltimore.  We usually work it out so that I can take the family with me.  My hotel and flight are covered so we just buy tickets for Kimberlie and the kids and end up with a great deal on a cross-country vacation.

In Vegas, we added 4 extra nights to the 4 that the law school covers and we explored sin city along with Los Angeles and the Pacific Coast (keep in mind Mackenzie was less than a year old then).  Last year we added 2 nights and I took the family on a quick tour of Washington D.C.  This year we only added one night because there’s not too much exciting about Colorado when the slopes are closed.  I do hope to visit Jon-Benet’s former home as well as Columbine High School — and of course the usual wonders like the Rocky Mountains.

So last night, I wrote about my new favorite app CardStar.  I’ve had it for several days now.

Today, two of my favorite blogs picked it up: Consumerist and Lifehacker.  For some reason, I just feel special that I knew about something before these two.

So why am I neglecting my blog lately?  Here is what else I’ve been neglecting:

• We leave for Colorado in 12 days.  I’m doing a 1-hour presentation and I really haven’t put anything together yet.
• I’m two weeks into a five week class and I’ve barely done anything.
• I have tiled half of what I intended to get done during Memorial Day weekend.
• We haven’t been to church in two weeks.

So what have I been up to?

• I’m on a defined running plan now.  As part of it, I’m running on Friday mornings with the Director of Employee Wellness, who is awesome.  Running at 6:00 am has me pooped by 9:00 pm.  Good thing there is nothing on TV.
• I’m swamped at work.  There is so much to do before I head out of town.
• I put up a swimming pool — one of those ugly Easy Set pools — and I’m figuring out how to balance the chemicals.  This will come in handy one day when I have a real pool.
• I’ve been doing a little side work: both web and tech support crap.  A little extra money never hurts.
• We converted all of our telephones at work to Cisco IP phones, like the ones in 24.  It seems like the fallout from that will never end.

So now what?

• I’m off Friday — another asbestos abatement day.  Ahh, the advantages of working in an old building.  I plan to catch up on some of the above or at least prioritize.

Here is my current new favorite iPhone app: CardStar

You basically enter the numbers from your membership and reward cards and let the cashier scan your phone instead of all of those annoying little cards on your keychain.

Why can’t i just come up with some stupid idea like this that would revolutionize the way that the population does some mundane task?  I could package it and sell it and retire tomorrow.  I just need ONE good idea.

By the way, if you want CardStar, it’s free for a limited time, although it is totally worth the 99 cents that it usually costs.

Since my blog has basically turned into a photo gallery lately, I thought I would come up with something to write about today.  I haven’t wrote much of anything lately, because I’m still struggling with the “Should my blog go public?” question.  I don’t want to express my opinions too much and then have a potential employer read them.

So lately my time has been taken up by all of these season finales on TV.  Tonight is American Idol, which I could care less about.  I’ll go run or something.  But since my four favorite shows are over, I will make a few comments about them:

LOST:  That atomic bomb better not have blown them back onto the original flight.  That is really going to tick me off.  Besides, a lot of questions still haven’t been answered . . . like why Juliet time-travels when the other others don’t?

PRISON BREAK:  Not only was this the season finale, but also the series finale.  I can see why.  The first season was smoking hot but it pretty much went downhill from there.  But did they really have to kill off Michael in the end?

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES:  Another show that has started out great but has gotten more boring over the seasons.  The finale closed out a lot of storylines, but the ones that they introduced weren’t too great.  The new chick that moved in with Carlos and Gabby is the only thing that offers any potential.

24:  We all know Jack will live.  And the president is going to leave her sickly looking first-man and hook up with Ethan.  And the next season will continue to get the terrorists that were missed this time around.  I’m just glad that my hacker hero Chloe is back and has managed to survive … even if she doesn’t quite get the I.T. lingo right.

This has been a beautiful weekend!

Saturday, we were up bright and early so that I could run the 5K at the Dogwood Festival in Perry.  Last year, this was one of my favorite 5Ks, so I had to do it again.  And, at $10 per person, I put Kimberlie and Tristan in it too.  I nailed a personal record, shaving 30 seconds off of a race I did 2 weeks ago.

Afterwards, the kids went to a birthday party for one of Tristan’s classmates and then Kimberlie and the kids planted flowers while I got things done around the house (that’s code talk for checked facebook 9000 times and read email and blogs).

This weekend’s pictures are courteous of the law school’s new Canon 50D.  Back in November, I wrote about the law school’s new Canon 40D.  I waited over 2 years for the law school to budget for a nice camera for our building, and as soon as I got the 40D, WMG (worthless marketing guy) stole it from us.  After my complaints reached the right people, we were given permission to order a second camera.  Of course I chose a nicer one.  I love the 50D!

Today is my and Kimberlie’s 6 year anniversary.  After church, we had a nice meal and then came home and took a long nap.  It’s rare for the entire house to take a nap at the same time.

The faculty and students at work are currently on spring break, which is great!  I’ve been able to catch up on so much stuff.  On Friday, we are all off.  I seem to work for the only employer that includes Good Friday as a paid holiday.  My plans?  Rip up the cheap flooring in my bathroom and install ceramic tile.  Of course, you will be able to read about the entire experience right here in a few days.  Let’s hope it goes well.

I’m also trying to finish out this stupid C# course.  I have one more project due at the end of the month and then I’ll be one-tenth of the way towards a second masters degree.  I haven’t decided if I want to attempt any courses this summer.  The summer semester is only a month long and I’ll be in Colorado for one of those weeks.  Mercer is sending me to do a presentation at a conference in JonBenet Boulder.  Also, I may ditch the graduate courses over the summer because I really want to upgrade my MCSE from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008.  I have the materials, I just need the time.

If I could just lock myself in a closet for a month with nothing but books and a few computers . . . actually I would probably just waste the time by playing on Facebook and Twitter.