Back around this way for a minute

Hey. I'm back but only for a few minutes.

So things haven't slowed down at work at all. I think that really they've picked up. I have new roles and reponsibilities, but I haven't yet gotten rid of the old ones. So says my boss that I need to pass them off to someone else. I sure would if I had the time...

I won't bore you with all of the details of what have been going on at work. What I will say though is that I am afriad that sometime I may end up reminding my new boss that he needs to try and remember what it was like being a little pee-on like me. He's been my supervisor now for about 3 or 4 weeks and I don't mean any disrespect to him, but it's almost like we've lost him into the management matrix. And it is for that reason that I occasionally am overtaken by fear. Why? Because I don't like to play in the political BS. I don't like to always give the answers that everyone else likes to hear. I am my own person and I am not afraid of that. What I am afraid of though is becoming a corporate zombie. Well, I guess I'm not afraid of that either because if push came to shove I really would quit and go to work for Subway. So while I have that aspect of business sucking, the other end of things is looking a little better.

On the side, I have had a rather failed attempt at a small town gig. About a year ago our computer guy in town supposedly made a bunch of money selling a script of his to some movie producer so he left town. Unfortunate for him, people weren't all that sad to see him go. However, he was the computer guy. He had a shop up on Main Street. I don't know how much he charged, but in talking to people lately they weren't really all that pleased.

So to fill the void I decided that I'd go public. I made some flyers and a website and launched Custom Computer Works. My goal is to promote local business. I do that by trying to provide a needed service to the small town without charging the big city price. I call that "how to get repeat customers"...and it's working. For about 2 years I have had a deal worked out with my neighbor across the street where I work on his computers and he mows my lawn. It's a pretty good gig.

After I went public back in the late summer of '05 I only got 2 calls. One was a call from the real estate appraiser in town. She was moving offices and needed someone to come and move all of her network equipment over to her new office and then get it hooked back up. It only took me an hour so I charged her $40; 1/2 of what the phone company would have charged.

My 2nd customer was a lady who was having a problem I couldn't fix. Her phone service had not yet been hooked up so there was nothing I could do. I ended up giving her the visit on the house since I didn't really fix anything for her.

Well, as of late we decided to run a 3 week ad in the local paper getting the word out about my services. Up till then, I only had some flyers hanging at the library because it was free. Running the ad paid off. My first call was from an elderly woman who has had almost every ailment that you could think of, and who had even been declaired clinically dead once, who is still alive. She's funny though. I got a kick out of working with her. She had me over to fix her email. She apparently had McLeod service before and was being switched over to PeoplePC. I felt bad about charging an old lady so I let her just pay me $10 even though I spent 2 hours with her over 2 nights.

Tonight I head out of town just a little ways to visit some folks who are having some printer and antivirus problems. I am a little encouraged though because the lady that I talked to about this said that her and several other people were unhappy with the service that they got from their previous tech dudes and so they had been looking pretty hard for a good replacement. She promised me that if things went well that I would not only have repeat calls, but also a good number of references. I hope she was right. It would be great to be able to get a good customer base under my belt.

So right now I am typing this while I wait for her printer software to finish downloading.

I hope to be back sooner next time.

Hoppy Easter

I told you I'd be back, but I didn't mean for it to take this long. Things at work have been very busy and it seems as though the powers that be don't really believe in one being able to take a break at their desk. That is where I used to hammer out so many of these, but it appears now that if I wish to find any solace during my workday I have to do it outside. That is fine with me though because then it gives me a reason to get out of our building.

Our group is taking on new roles. Essentially everything is changing for us while we still haven't figured out how to give our old work to someone else. So what does that mean for me? I've had to hire a few more contract hamsters to run around in my head to keep me going.

I did feel like I got somewhat of a break in the week though when my wife and I took the kids to some friends' house Thursday night. It was a good time, but I probably would have had more fun if I hadn't still been trying to wrap my head around some of my wife and my "spousal compatibility" issues, which I won't go into detail here. It was good though. She got to have some girl time and I got to have some guy time.

Yesterday we went to the neighbor's across the street for their Easter family deal. I kind of felt pretty honoured that they would invite us to a family function. The food was good, my kind of Easter meal- BBQ pork and beef sandwiches. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the Q.

Most of their family came down from Northwest Iowa. They had a big "egg hunt" for all of us, which I wasn't expecting. If I would have known, then I would have made sure that we would have brought things for everyone else too, but I guess they didn't want us to feel pressured.

So I'm sitting here now and typing this out while the rest of the house is sleeping. Starting yesterday I have been getting up early and going for about a mile long brisk walk. My legs are still getting used to it but I think that it will really help. Not only that, but it is also just nice to be up in the morning, go walking, come home and shower and be pretty close to ready for the day by 7:30am. I am hoping that this way I can be up and get my excercising done before work so that I don't have to worry about losing kid and wife time at night.

We are supposed to go down to my parent's today for Easter dinner today. I think that we are also throwing in a birthday party for my grandma too. She has Alzheimer's. Some days are better than others and I hope that this is one of them. My grandpa is one trooper for going through this with her. He could have just thrown in the towl and put her in a nursing home, but he is more dedicated to her than that and I applaud for it. He's a tough man in general though. Tough but sensitive and loving.

The only possible snag about today though is that last night my son was running a fever...again. That poor kid has been sicker more frequently than my daughter ever was. So if he's still not feeling well later than it will just be my daughter and I packing up and heading off to town.

Needless to say [or perhaps not] we didn't go to church today. I don't feel bad about it either. Typically I find myself completely disconnected from spiritual things at church when it comes to holidays. Maybe it is because of the commercialism of it all. Especially Easter when it seems like things are decorated extra special, everyone seems overly happy as though they all did crack out in the parking lot, and congregational singing turns into a sing along concert with some of the cheesiest performers. I won't get into all of the Pagan influences that helped mold and shape what we call Easter because I have gotten over all of that. I guess it is just a personal thing for me. Really, I do think that it is something that only I hold unto myself. I think that I am pretty sure of this because as I walked past the larger Lutheran church this morning (would you believe that in a town of only 1500-2000 people that we actually have 2 Lutheran, 1 United Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, and 1 Catholic houses of worship?) I saw all the cars in the parking lot and actually thought to myself "I hope those people in there find what they are looking for." Yes, even in a Lutheran church I'm sure that one can find something.

So, I also have to find some time to write up a paper. It appears as though someone over at the Bob Enyart Live Forum wants me to write up an argument about why I feel that Open Theism is based on speculation rather than solid knowledge. I know that I will really enjoy doing this one but I just don't know when I'm going to find the time.

For now, I guess I need to go out and clean my car so that I can be ready to take my daughter with me. My wife's alarm was set for 7:30 this morning and now it is 9:30 and she is still in bed sleeping. I kind of take that as a sign that she won't be going today.

I'll be back sometime.

I'm still here

I haven't disappeared.

Things have really picked up at work, which is were I usually post, so I haven't had much time to put anything else on here. And things at home have been busy lately too.

I hope to do some write-ups this weekend. I just wanted to let everyone know that I was still alive.

Are you Open or Closed?

I made reference a couple of posts back to a quack named Bob Enyart. He is a committed Open View Theist. He openly espouses the belief pretty regularly on his radio show.

On Wednesday, a caller called in and challenged his belief on Open Theism, but sadly the caller didn't seem to be as studied up on the subject as he should have been. Unfortumately he seemed like he was calling in just to say "I don't really know a better way to explain things, so I'll just leave it for now by saying that your view is dumb." I really don't see the reason for such intellectually lacking arguments. To me it's like trying to find your way out of a black hole.

Anyways, you can follow one of the links above to read about what Open Theism is. I will have to say that honestly right now I feel that in light of certain positions given by the Classical View that I have problems with Openness. But I will also say that the reverse is true; In light of some things that the Open view points out, I have some problems with the Classical view.

This is the meat of either side-

Classical View: God is unchanging. He is sovereign, immuatble, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is in control of all things, and though he permits limited free will actions of his creatures, he ultimately has ended the story and is just waiting to see its fruition.

The Open View- God is open for change. He has changed his mind in the past. He has limited knowledge of the future and therefore works with the free will of men in a cooperation of bringing about his will [hopefully] through the obedience of his people. The future is therefore open for both God and his people, and therefore his people can bring about change on God's behalf; including the possibility of ushering in His Kingdom on earth and cutting short the "end times" by various means.

The Open View bears some resemblance to something that an anscestor of mine [Alfred North Whitehead] called Process Theology. I'm not going to get into all of what that is here. You can read about it for youself at the previous link.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the readers of this blog even care; and to some extent I really don't blame you.

So here's the question- Are you Open or Closed?

Or are you like me who is wandering around looking for any damn door that I can even find the knob? I don't even know what room I'm supposed to be in. Didn't I order a cheeseburger?

Oh well, think about it and then comment if you want.

It's 2am

I took today off of work because I thought that my wife wanted to go help her sister get settled into her new house. Our daughter has been sick the past couple of days and I have had this nasty cold. I figured that I could stay home with the girl while my wife went and did some house warming. But I later came to find out that she had decided not to go. So here's what my day looked like-

I got up at about 8am and got things going with my daughter, kind of. We then sat around and cuddled until about 10:30am when my wife and son started napping. So the girl and I came upstairs to her bedroom and played frisbee for a little bit and then went to my bedroom to lay in bed and "rest" while watching PBS Kids. I think that the shows that were on were the Bernstein Bears and Thomas the Train Engine. What really happened is that she watched those shows while I went in and out of naps.

We then got up around noon when she was complaining of having a headache. I fixed us lunch while we watched some more kids oriented shows...and then finally around 2:30pm I put her down for her afternoon nap. She seemed like she was really ready for it.

I then decided to lay down in my room where my son was sleeping @ about 3pm. I figured that I would just nap for an hour until he woke up and then I'd get up and maybe watch a movie. I think I do remember hearing him cry a little bit at some point, but the next thing I knew I was awake and looking at the clock and it was already 7pm. So I got up, but I was thrown off since it was still light enough out to make it feel like it was only 5. I guess it was a pretty good nap. Well, it must have been a good one because I tried going to bed tonight @ 12:30 and had a really hard time. I think I finally fell asleep around 1 but then woke back up around 1:30. So now I am still up and wide awake. It really sucks though because I have my alarm set to go off @ 6 so I can get up and go to work.

I guess if things don't get sleepier by 3 then I might just get ready for work and go in to get there by 4 and then just work untill noon or 1. My wife might not like that idea, but by the time she reads this [and if I actually do it] then it will all be history.

Overall, my cold is only slightly better. Earlier by left ear finally did unplug. The moment that I felt it do so was heavenly. But I think that it is kind of plugged again though.

I hate being sick. Maybe God is punishing me for something. Who knows. I wish that I actually believed in something like that, but...sometimes I still wonder.

Out the nose

It seems like everything is indeed going right out the nose.

Today I did leave work as soon as I was done working on my thing. I'll just call it a thing because to most people reading this it is probably too boring to describe.

I came home but I did not watch a movie, take a walk, take a nap, or drink any scotch. Instead, I decided that since I finally had some time and determination that I would rotate my car tires which was way overdue. I figured that it was probably time to do so because a.) I couldn't remember the last time I had it done, b.) knew that mileage-wise it was probably time, and c.) my car had been doing this strange wobbling as I drove it...and it seemed to keep getting worse.

So I get the rear driver side wheel off and I know that it is in decent shape because I bought it not too long ago. I had driven over a piece of scrap metal on the way to work one morning and up an unfixable hole in the old one. The tread on this one was excellent. But then I took off the front driver side wheel and not only was it bald in most places, it looked like parts of it had also been scalped! How the hell could I let it get so bad? No wonder the thing felt like it was going to fall apart at any given moment driving down the highway.

So I called the dear old Wally World nearest me [because I know that their tires are always the cheapest and I don't want to spend much for this worthless car] and they said that to get their lowest end 45k mile tire would be about $47. The reality of it is that I really need to get 3 tires, but I can wait just a little bit longer on the other 2. They still have some usable tread on them, but I know that I can't let them go longer than 2 months.

So I called the Mrs. to see what our budget looked like only to find out that we were already in the hole on paper due to our need to give Uncle Iowa what he thinks he needs from our taxes [which are due to be mailed out by midnight next Friday night]. So I did some thinking. At first I wondered which convenient store I could get away with knocking off. Then I wondered what else I might have that I could try to sell on Ebay. Then I wondered how important it really was whether or not we ate for the next few weeks- but then it dawned on me...I HAVE STOCK OPTIONS THAT I CAN SELL FROM WORK!

So I jumped on that Information Superhighway by which you are now reading this and did some math and found out that I can make a little bit more than what we need by taking part in this stock option and selling it. Well, I have 350 shares as options, but only 200 of them are fully vested. I think I have another year or 2 before the other 150 is fair game. So I'm going to be on the phone with our Investments people first thing in the morning seeing how I might turn that option into a reality that goes into my pocket.

I'm glad though that I didn't drink the scotch. I must admit that even though I do occasionally like to have a drink, I'm not all that practiced up. I bought a 6-pack of beer about 3 months ago and I still have 2 bottles sitting in my fridge. Actually, to my safety, I have this built in thing that tells me when I am coming up on having too much to drink. I start to get a headache. So my bouncer doesn't even let me see a hangover. What do you call it if you get a hangover before you even get drunk? A hangback? A curb? I don't know; I'm just glad that it's there. I know that a lot of people have struggled with alcoholism. I don't want to be that kind of person. Actually, given the way I react to it, I don't think that it would really be possible...unless I was completely incapable of knowing what I was doing. I guess I seem to only use alcohol for medicinal purposes.

Well, I have been blowing my nose and coughing all day so my ribs are killing me and I really need to get to sleep. My wife just told me that she is going to bed...and if I join her then that means that this will be the first time in what seems like very long time that we have made it there before 10pm.

I know- We're getting old. I'm sick, so I don't really care.

Uuuugggghhh!

So it's Tuesday and I have been working all morning on various things. Today is tough though because I helped my brother-in-law move his family Saturday and Sunday night. It wasn't the move itself, but the weather. Sunday night was chilly and rainy. Now I have a good cold going on.

Yesterday I took some over the counter "non-drowsy" cold pills and I ended up falling asleep at my desk a few times. Today I decided on no drugs, except Green Tea extract pills. My nose is running like a faucet but at least I don't feel as plugged up.

I do feel pretty bad though because I've been blowing my nose all morning without end and then having to touch keyboards and mice that other people will use. I hope that they don't get sick too.

It is a good thing that I showed up for work earlier than normal today because there was some setup that really needed done and if I would have just come at the regular time then things wouldn't have worked out. I am feeling though like when I am done with all this stuff that I am going to jump in my car and head home early. My wife and kids are at her sister's house helping them unpack and such from the move. I figure that with a quiet house I will probably either watch a movie and relax or take a nap. Either way, I figure that my system probably also needs a shot or two of Scotch [sorry Steve] to help me sweat this out. I might also go for a walk. Who knows. Maybe I'll just go to a casino instead of any of it. Probably not. I could easily get the same effect by turning on one of my kids musical toys and stand there flushing money down the toilet.

Anyways, I guess that's all for now. I'll be back.

Everybody's Working For The Weekend

What a weekend.

Friday we went to my wife's grandmother's viewing. She passed away on Tuesday evening every peacefully in the hospital. She was ready to go, but I don't think that any of us were quite ready to let her. She was a wonderful woman. She always had time for everyone who ever stopped by her place. And she always had some kind of food to feed them too.

So we got to the funeral home and without surprise it was packed; mostly with family. There were friends also who stopped by but the majority was family. Boy oh boy did I marry into a huge family...but I love it. Kids running everywhere, adults standing around talking. No one is a stranger. I still don't know all the names, but I am getting there.

Saturday was the funeral. We were late. It was the first time that I have ever been late to a funeral, much less a family member's funeral...but we had to go to the nearby municipal airport to pick up some extended family who was flying into the area from St. Louis. The main guy is a lawyer who flies as a hobby so they came in on a little 6 seater twin engine. They were all great and I wish that we would have had more time with them. But we still got to the funeral about 20 minutes late.

It was a Lutheran funeral; held @ Trinity Lutheran Church. I rather enjoyed it, if one can really "enjoy" a funeral. There is something about the solace of liturgy and the type of "form" that they use in worship that seems very mystically attractive to me, but I'm sure that I would get bored with it after a while. But once in a while it just feels good to my soul to be involved in responsive reading and congregational rote. I hope that I can expose my kids to some of the beauty of this as they get older.

Grandma's request was that after the service that everyone eat before going out to the cemetary for internment because of the "long drive" that we'd have. It was really only about a 10-15 minute drive, but she was just always more interested in making sure that everyone's needs were being met. So we had a banquet that lasted almost 3 hours. Lutherans know how to put on a meal. Thankfully they were all German Lutherans, otherwise the food would have only been about 2 or 3 colours.

We then made our way out to the cemetary to say the last goodbyes and the final prayers. When it was all over the family "dispersed" but still stuck around for about an hour. My wife and I wandered around the small burial lot for a little while as the kids slept in the van. We found the grave of our 2 would-be nephews who died before they were born in a car accident. Keaton and Ian. I wish that I could have met them but sometimes life deals us hands that we can't do much with.

As we were leaving I saw that the service men were there to begin the process of lowering the casket into the vault and putting the vault into the ground. I asked my wife if it would be alright if we watched. I know that it might seem kind of morbid but I had never seen the process before. So we asked the guys if we could watch. They agreed. One of the guys had gone to school with my wife's older sister.

We stood and watched as they put the casket into the vault, then sealed it, then lowered the vault down into the ground where it would later be covered with dirt. It was all very interesting to stand there thinking that we go to all this work for a shell that was once a person who now resides elsewhere. I know that the respect is due but it is just one of those interesting things about how we care for our loved ones after they go.

I hope that I live a very long life by God's grace; but I hope that when it is over I can go as peacefully and fully ready as Grandma Caroline. She knew that she would go very soon and she welcomed the transition with open arms and without fear. Her only request is that her children be singing songs and hymns to her while she was ushered from this life to the next. Her birthday was on Thursday. She would have been 97 years old. They celebrated early. One of the songs that they sang to her as she prepared to go on Tuesday was Happy Birthday. What a birthday she must have had. I'm sure that Jesus threw a pretty big party for her once she arrived.

We will sure miss her.

So after we left the cemetary we had to head back to my wife's folks to pack up our stuff and head back home. Her sister's family is getting ready to close on a new house tomorrow and they still had to move a lot of stuff out in order to get it into storage. I had agreed to help them out last night. So from about 7:30-10:30 we made a couple of trips back and forth from the old house to the storage unit.

On my way there I was channel surfing over the satellite radio in the van. I decided to stop on Sirius Left to listen to some Liberal discussion. The program that I heard was hosted by Stephanie Miller. I had never heard of her before but she was doing a lot of bashing against Bill O'Rielly. I thought that a lot of it was pretty funny since I really can't stomach Bill for too long. I have to admit that they did have him on tape saying some really stupid things. For a guy who takes himself as seriously as he does, he should really try and polish up is image. But I digress...as I was listening to the show and some of the criticisms that they offered I came to this conclusion- I am not a Democrat not because of what they stand for, but rather because of what they don't stand for. It seems like really all they are is just "anti" whatever is going on in the Republican party. I personally think that American politics is really boring, but it just seems like they just want to bitch about whatever is going on, but don't really care to offer any insightful resolve.

In my estimation the Democrats want to control the way people live and the Republicans want to control the way people think. I think that is why I am a Libertarian. I believe in freedom. I think that it is probably most productive to take away some of the Federal authority and give it back to the States to govern themselves and their own affairs. Then if you live in a state that decides to go one way or another you can either adapt...or move your ass to somewhere that you will better fit in. I am not necessarily for the legalization of a lot of things that are currently illegal, but if a state wants to legalize things and kill themselves then they should be able to do that by their own decision. That's just the way I see it, but sadly I know that our party really doesn't stand much of a chance because we are such a minority...but I'll continue to vote for them.

Then I also listened in for a little while to the Catholic [EWTN] station for a while. I don't understand a lot of what the Catholic church does a lot of the time but there are certain things about them that I have come to respect. I won't get into all of those things here and now, but I no longer join some of my evangelical counterparts who seem anti-Catholic. I'm glad to be over that.

So today we have just been taking it easy. We slept in just a little bit. OK, it only seemed like sleeping in since we had to change the clocks last night and spring them ahead. Both kids were tired and fussy from a long and busy weekend, and tonight I have to go back to help move again. That's OK though because I need the excercise.