.: bistan.net :.

When I was 18, it was cool to have a credit card.  Flashing that plastic was cool stuff.  Now that I’m 30, everyone I know has a credit card.  It’s just part of life.  Nothing special.  You would think that the days are gone where flashing the plastic impresses the chicks.

Not for me . . .

As any reader of this blog knows, I am a Disney Fanatic.  So naturally I jumped on getting a Disney Visa card when they debuted in 2003.  At least 1% of every purchase is returned in Disney rewards which are good for anything Disney.  Four years ago we spent a week at WDW for free and we went on a Disney cruise two years ago for nearly free.  And we bought Disney annual passes this year and paid for several nights at WDW with our rewards.  I put nearly everything on my Disney Visa (and yes, I pay it off immediately).

You can choose from about seven different card designs and for the last four or so years, I’ve had a Finding Nemo card.  Let me tell you that this card serves as an icebreaker with nearly everyone who I present it to for payment . . . especially hot chicks.

My coworkers couldn’t believe at first how fast I could melt a girl’s heart with my credit card.  Now, they just roll their eyes because they’ve seen it happen so much.  It’s unbelievable. Kimberlie didn’t notice as much at first, until I remarked one day that I should have had a Finding Nemo credit card before I got married.  It would have been so much easier finding girls.

When I’m paying for something with Kimberlie, the waitress/cashier/etc. aren’t usually as vocal about it, but they always mention it.  Some of them, however, could care less that my wife is with me.  Kimberlie used to get a little jealous, but now, she just rolls her eyes too because it happens so much.  Tonight, the very soft spoken waitress at Applebee’s returned my card, thanked us for dining with them, smiled, and quietly said, “Oh yeah, I like your Visa”.

So here’s a hint for all of the single guys out there: I’m happily married, but Nemo can have any chick he wants!

Since I was about six, I have been extremely interested in NASA and the space program.  When I was 8, and then again 20 years later, I toured Kennedy Space Center.  When I was 11, I attended space camp.  The NASA website is one of the few government web sites that I visit frequently.  One thing that I haven’t done, however, is witness a space shuttle launch.

In college, I had a car pass to get my vehicle into the space center for a particular launch, but that launch was postponed until during my final exams so I was unable to go.  Last night, after getting home from work and settling into my winding down routine, my boss calls.  Since the shuttle was launching in the middle of the night, you could look a certain direction and see the trail of light in the night sky.  I thought it was ridiculous to get up in the middle of the night to see what would appear to be a shooting star.  I suggested that he drive down there, witness the launch, and drive back and be at work at 8am.

Long story short, less than an hour later he was on the road — with me in the passenger seat. 5.5 hours to Cocoa Beach, Florida.  We arrived an hour before liftoff and found the perfect vantage point:  10 miles from the shuttle, clear view across the Banana River from a pretty decent elevation.  Ten minutes before liftoff . . . .SCRUB!

So we drove back, disappointed and sleepless.

Tomorrow will be a difficult day.

Last Labor Day weekend, while I was running the Labor Day Road Race, a coworker/friend was on a trip to Birmingham.  Her son Joshua, one of Tristan’s friends, became ill and was taken to a local emergency room.  To make a long story short, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  It’s difficult for me because he is Tristan’s age. 

I’ve wrote about Joshua before here and here.  You can also read more about him here.

On Friday, he died at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital.  I visited them Wednesday and he wasn’t doing very well.  I have to say that the PICU is one of the most horrible places that I’ve ever been.  Each room has huge glass windows into the hall, so everywhere you look, you see children suffering.  I hope I never have a reason to go there again.

Joshua’s mother is the only person that I work with who has a child the same age as Tristan, so for the last four years we have chatted about the crazy things that our little boys have done.

Every night for the better part of a year, Tristan has asked God to “help Joshua feel better” as part of his nightly prayers.  Friday night, I talked to him and told him he didn’t have to say that anymore because Joshua was in heaven.  When my mother died last year, Tristan didn’t fully understand everything that was happening, but going through that experience helped him understand the end of life on earth.  So when I told him about Joshua, he grieved for the first time.  That was difficult for both me and Kimberlie.

Tomorrow, I will go somewhere that I’ve never been to before and somewhere that I hope I never have to go to again — to a child’s funeral.

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.

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 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.

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.

Since I’ve been slightly neglecting this blog lately, I figured its a great time for a life update.  In no particular order:

RUNNING: I ran 4 miles tonight. It’s the longest distance I’ve done since the Disney Marathon, which was almost 3 months ago.  I’m just over a 9 minute/mile pace at that distance.  I have five races scheduled in April/May so I’m really going to be hitting the pavement.  It feels good getting a trophy at the end of a race!

SCHOOL: I turned in my second C# project last weekend.  One more to go and then class number one of masters degree number two will be complete.  Summer semester is going to be rough because it’s less than a month and I have a work trip to Colorado scheduled right in the middle of it.

WORK: Work sucks lately.  I just hate being there.  Our worthless marketing guy is trying to take over technology and my boss doesn’t like to fight the political battles.  On top of all of that, four years of doing the same things is getting boring.  There is no chance of advancement in my current job and my boss doesn’t support formalized training (even when it’s free).  I would really like to get my expired CCNA back (which wouldn’t cost the University anything but time), but the boss believes that if you train someone, they will leave.  I’m not knocking my boss.  He’s a great guy both in and out of work, but I need challenges!!!  I would go for the CCNA outside of work, but I don’t have time.  I do have a 5 day weekend beginning tomorrow, so maybe I’ll be re-energized by Wednesday.  If things don’t improve over the next few months, I may jump into the job market.

TRAVEL:  Yes, we are hitting the road again Sunday.  Back to Disney World.  As annual passholders, we can book the value rooms for next to nothing.  Apparently though, too many of them have been booked, so someone from Disney called me today and gave us a free upgrade to one of the Deluxe Villa Resorts (Old Key West).  It should be a great weekend.

TELEVISION: LOST is really slow-moving this season.  Some questions are being answered, but there’s not much new.  I’m ready for more action.  24 is pretty much the same old thing.  Some [insert hostile county]ian terrorists plan to detonate a [insert WMD type here] weapon in the U.S. and Jack is going to save the day.  Been there, done that.  The best part of the entire show is Chloe!