Great Weekend

This past weekend I spent time with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Kristen and Matt, in Jefferson, just north of Athens. The original intent of the trip was to run in my first xterra race. The race was a half-marathon called Thrill in the Hills and it took place at Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, GA.

While planning for this race, I realized that Kristen and Matt lived 10 miles away from the park and since they were needing me to do some computer work for them, I thought it was a good time for a visit. They were happy to have me visit and I really enjoyed hanging out with them.

Friday night we went to the UGA Baptist Student Union dinner theatre. It was a production of Beauty and the Beast and it was great. The food was excellent and the cast did a great job of portraying Disney's Beauty and the Beast. It seems like it wrapped up close to 10 or a little after.

Saturday morning was my race, which I plan on covering in more detail in my next blog. Here is the only pic I took that morning from my warm car. It was about 30 degrees out.

The experience was wonderful and look forward to doing some more xterra races. The rest of the day was spent laying around the house and recovering as my legs were extremely sore.

One of the best parts of my weekend was Sunday morning. We went to sunday school and church (Watkinsville First Baptist) and it was an awesome experience. This was the first time I had been to their sunday school, which is a newly wed class. Their class was quite large and friendly. It was great to see how mission-minded they were with several in the room being involved with missions in some way, including Matt and Kristen. The teacher then spoke on Ephesians 4 and focused on "oneness" in the church. From there we went to church to hear Pastor Sibley. God's presence was palpable and you could feel it when you walked in the door and in all parts of the service. The praise band did a great job, as they have every time I've ever been up to visit and the pastor spoke on the reality of hell and the two sides of the cross. It was very convicting and eye-opening and really drew you out of any sort of tunnel vision you may have on your life and daily interaction with those around you. I could truly feel God's presence that morning and have felt inspired to look deeper in to how I use my spiritual gift for the "building up of the church."

I wrapped up my visit that day by eating lunch with my nephew, Josh, who is a pharmacy student at UGA. It was good to catch up with him and hear what he has going on since he is very active. It's exciting to hear about all of the opportunities that students have these days. You miss out on these things if you are not out there and keeping yourself open for experience.

It was an easy trek home and I used that time to replay the morning's message in my head and relive that experience. I did have to stop a time or two to readjust the roof rack on my car. The wind was blowing so hard on my bike that the roof rack shifted back at some point and made me quite nervous.

Finally, I was glad to be home with my wife and child in time to go to church and take part in the observance of the Lord's Supper. I was glad to be home with them and attempt to put my thoughts in to words (I often have trouble with that) to share with my wife the moving experience I had at church and the great time I had with Kristen and Matt. Family is a good thing!

Great Week And Great Plans Ahead

Things have been very upbeat this week at work and home. We're slowly but surely getting things done around the house and preparing for the new baby due in April. Carly is pumped up about it and I hope she keeps her enthusiasm as the big sis.

Work is going great also. I'm working on a large project to convert 2 older labs to Google Chrome, if we can get the details worked out. I'm seeing everything fall in to place and am enjoying the planning side of it.

I've been meeting a group of guys every Wednesday morning from my Sunday School at Roosters at 6:30am for fellowship time. I've enjoyed being able to get together with these Godly men to swap stories.

Wednesdays are pretty busy with that at 6:30am and then wrapping up the day with a 5 or 10 miler with some different guys. I'm training for a half-marathon coming up this weekend in Winder, GA called The Thrill in the Hills. I'm hoping this xterra race won't kill me. I'll also get to spend some time with my sis-in-law and bro-in-law. I'm looking forward to it. The weekend after that is the Snickers marathon here in Albany. I haven't decided if I'll do the half or just volunteer.

Awaiting the Release of Google Chrome OS

I've had the opportunity to play with Google's new Chrome OS and have been very impressed with it. It's in pre-beta and so I've had to run it in a virtual environment or off of a flash drive. You can read up on more of that here. The quick and dirty explanation of it is that Chrome OS is cloud based computing. There is a thin client (linux based) on your computer that connects you to the internet and have access to all of your apps. In this case, gmail, google docs, and a host of other things. No MS Windows bloat.

I really like what I'm seeing with it but the main reason I'm interested is that I'm looking for an alternative to Windows XP in an aging computer lab at the school I work at. The machines are five years old and showing their wear. I feel that in another year the computers will not be worth using since they take so long to accomplish anything. The kids and teachers are aggravated with it and I don't feel their lack of performance is acceptable.

With Chrome OS or any other form of cloud computing, the workload is put on the internet connection and whatever the machines may be connecting to. If things go as planned, we should be able to come up with some type of solution by summer for implementation in at least one of the labs for testing. I am counting on the probability that all apps will be web based very soon, which is not always the case in k12 education.

Snow is Melting

We had a good time with the snow yesterday. It really came down yesterday evening in quarter-size flakes and though it was pretty wet, it was still fun to play in. My daughter had a blast and didn't want to come in. Something she didn't know or understand was how rare it was to have snow this far south. It even snowed in Pensacola, FL.

I will say that it was dangerous to drive in but not because of the snow itself. The drivers around here had no idea that you really should turn your headlights on and not drive over the speed limit. We saw a few good'uns yesterday driving like maniacs. I was a little worried about driving in it because my wife was worried about it. At the same time, I was amazed at how everything looked covered in snow. I had never seen any of Albany covered in snow like that. I kept telling my wife and daughter to enjoy the view. I was in awe of how God powdered the trees and made this place I was so familiar with look like a different place. It was a day of Norman Rockwell views.

Playing catch up-

To catch up, I'm still working as a tech specialist in k12 education. I've been there now for about 5.5yrs and its by far the best and most enjoyable job I've ever had. Having a great job is worth more than having a terrible job that you don't like and getting paid more.

I'm still running and have been for many years now. I've been in 2 half-marathons and too many shorter races to list. I'm now training for a xterra half coming up at the end of the month. http://www.dirtyspokes.com/tr_races.php?trraceid=1&trpageid=7 It's an off-road race at a state park and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

For the first time since I've been working at the school, I'm no longer coaching a sport. I've coached golf and tennis over the past few years and have loved it but its a big time commitment. Working with the kids made it worth it and I do love to play golf and tennis.

Part of the reason for the above is the pending arrival of our next child. We have a 3.5yr old daughter and we are expecting another girl. I'm certain she will consume a lot of our time and we are looking forward to it. Our daughter is looking forward to being the big sis and helping out with everything and I'm ready to watch her do it.

Long gap but I may revive this....on a SNOW DAY!

It's Feb. 12th, 2010 here in Lee County, GA and we are having a "snow day". It's currently snowing (and raining) and its about 40 out so its not sticking yet. The temp should be dropping soon allowing the snow to stick and the rain to change completely in to snow.

It has been a long time since my last post but I'm going to start posting regularly if possible. I've been reading the almost daily blogs from www.fatcyclist.com and found it pretty inspiring. If nothing else, this will be my vent.

Weight Lifted

Summer is over as last Thursday and I'm back at work at my own school. I'm so relieved and feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted off of my back. We worked for 2 months solid on 2 different schools wiring, putting in computers, cloning new computers, setting up new users, and anything else they could think of. Finally, it is over!!!