Day 19,565

Lots of good things going on today.

I’m back teaching Office 365 this week, which is one of my favorite classes to teach. I ought to be in good shape so long as that moving target isn’t moving too erratically. I also have a couple of familiar faces in the classroom this week (one of the guys brought me a beer – WINNING!), and we talked about an upcoming brew fest in Parkville, Kansas.

It’s opening day at the K… Kauffman Stadium and the Royals finally get a home game. They didn’t look so hot most of the last week playing the Twins and the Astros on the road. I hope they can get back to .500 here in the next series. Could be worse I suppose. Every Royals fan remembers the dark days of the 00’s.

Tonight, I offered to make dinner, and for me, that means one of two things… foraging for takeout, or running over to Trader Joe’s and put together some stovetop and microwave assembly that satisfies the family. Hey, I got a fifteen-year-old boy in the house, and let me tell you, that kid can put away some chow.

Other good news – my favorite college basketball team is going to get a couple of transfer players that have chosen to leave Memphis following the departure of Josh Pastner to Georgia Tech. The Lawson brothers are coming Lawrence… and there’s another big man from Memphis that might be looking for greener pastures as well. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for him.

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That’s about all I have at the moment. I probably ought to start outlining my future blog posts in Scrivener, and building them out to create a little more structure to my blog.

Also, if anybody reading this has a suggestion for a different WordPress theme, I am open-minded to suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

Peace, y’all.

Day 19,564

I had a pretty good day yesterday, and I have friends, my son, and my spouse to thank for it.

I am a 53-year-old man, but there are still a number of interests I hang on to that are strong ties to my youth. When I was in high school, in the late 70’s, I was introduced to the world of fantasy role-playing games. I made life-long friendships that endure to this day, and I had a lot of fun.

Yesterday, for the first time in almost a year, I got back together with the current group I play with. The DM is an old friend that I met through work, as he was a student in some classes I taught a number of years ago, and that relationship evolved into real friendship. My 15-year-old son had a great time, and with a mix of established and new players, we had a great afternoon rolling dice and laying waste to the evil that infested an underground stronghold. Nothing quite like a dungeon crawl to get the old blood pumping.

On one level, it’s about the adventure, but I think, like any other social situation, it’s about pumping the bellows to keep the old fires burning and making some new friends.

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We were victorious on multiple levels. Perhaps most importantly we were victorious in setting a date for our next session that happens to be in the same calendar year as our last session.

Beware of flying dwarves.

Peace, y’all.

Day 19,563

Did my necessaries this morning, swapping out my fb profile picture for that of a happy donkey, and expressed my gratitude for the safe return of my wife from her business sojourn to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.

In about an hour, my son and I get to head west to the Kansas state capitol and meet up with some friends for the first time in a long time and revisit the Forgotten Realms and resuscitate my dwarven cleric, Odeon Hammersmith.

(I’m still surprised how many of my gamer friends don’t get the little joke with my character’s name. I guess my gamer/music fan friends would get it pretty quick, however.)

Anyway, we’re taking care of a few things around here in anticipation of the adventure. We have to get a healthy breakfast (love my wife’s corned beef hash and eggs), and slake my thirst (some Starbuck’s medium roast coffee that doesn’t taste burnt).

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Sadly, seems like one of the members of our party won’t be able to make it due to illness. We shall slay our nemesis in his name… although we probably should slay his archnemesis right now. I think the name “Montezuma” falls in their somewhere.

May you make all your saving throws, and may your dice be loaded with natural 20’s.

Peace, y’all.

Day 19,562

Trying to change one’s habits can be challenging. Part of the trick, in my opinion, is to focus on making those changes first thing in the morning. It’s a bit of that “Eat That Frog” philosophy that you can read about in Brian Tracy’s book of the same name.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been a terrible procrastinator. I have an irrational fear of way too many things, and now, here in my 50’s, I am working to correct that behavior. I recognize that I do it – I guess that’s step one. The other thing I need to focus on is that idea of “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”. In the case of not getting things done, the negative outcomes are far more likely than getting things done, even if one is putting piss-poor effort into a completed project.

A couple years ago, during the political season of 2016, I was a very active critic of Kansas governor Sam Brownback. An old buddy of mine would pop into my facebook posts with a picture of a puppy or a kitten to get my mind back in right place (thanks, Tony!), and that kind of morphed/evolved into a habit that I still pursue daily. I try to update my facebook profile picture every morning. The other component to this particular habit change manifested in my pursuit of a positive attitude. I can be a grumpy old bear sometimes (my wife might say that’s my default state), but finding and posting on a new thing to be grateful for every day is one of the most positive habits I have ever created for myself.

Some other things to read about regarding creating positive habits…

Anything by Brian Tracy.

Here’s a Lifehack article… “18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick“. I like both the Lifehack and LifeHacker websites, although I often go to one searching for an article that’s actually on the other site… I wish they would merge.
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Betterhabits.com has some nice content as well.

The main thing is to find a source of motivation/inspiration that you can fall back on to keep things going in the right direction. Daily. First thing in the morning.

I’ll take mine with coffee.

#writechain

Day 19,561

If you’re reading this and you know me, you know a few things. I’m technical. I’ve been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for a long time now (just renewed to start year 23), and I enjoy working with people that want to learn.

Ths past week I was quite fortunate. I was teaching a class that is one of my peripheral classes, not one I do on a regular basis. It’s a course on Microsoft Internet Information Server, and we cover four different versions of the service as part of that course. That course is odd, due to the way it has some appeal to the web server administrator and a different appeal to the web designer.

I teach the class from an admin (or “IT Pro”) perspective.

My one student this week was a developer, and she was a great student to have this week.

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Seriously.

Technical training is very dry. We’re talking Ben Stein dry. But it’s the trainer’s responsibility to try and keep things interesting and draw the student into a repartee, making it more of a shared experience. If we can have a little fun along the way, that makes it even more rewarding.

This week is one of those weeks that makes me so glad that I made the decisions that I made along the way, and lead me to this point.

Day 19,560

A bit of a rarity here in my household. My wife is traveling on business, but both of my daughters decided to come by the house tonight for this and that, and I have all three kids here (Bonnie, 20; Gracie, 19; Dane, 15) and nobody is fighting!

Bon is having a little computer trouble with her computer, but we’ve found a little bit of a workaround for the meantime. Little external keyboards and mice can come in pretty handy. Gracie wanted to do some cooking, and having her here to cook is great – the kitchen in her dorm is nothing to brag about. Dane’s looking at something interesting on his phone.

(Brief interlude… Bon’s computer situation is worse than expected)

And now the quiet comes. I’ve taken steps to help out my eldest (pricey steps, but steps none the less). G prepped her chicken wraps to share with her classmates tomorrow. Dane has gone upstairs to do whatever it is 15 year old boys do at 8:30 on a Wednesday night.

I’m back to being in the room all by myself. Maybe it’s about time for me to ponder the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything. Or maybe I’ll just grab an adult beverage and watch “The Expanse” on SyFy. Looks to me like no matter what, I win.
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Thanks to whatever power is out there that has blessed me so.

Peace, y’all.

#writechain

Day 19,559

Congrats to the Tarheels and Roy Williams. It broke my heart when you left Lawrence so many years ago, but we were fortunate to land our feet with Bill Self. I’m confident that he’ll get KU back to the top of the mountain in the coming seasons. After all, Dean Smith was in his 60’s before he won his second national championship, and Bill has one at 54.

There’s this weird transition period as sports fans move from one sports season into another sports season. College basketball has just wrapped up, and it just so happened to coincide with the beginning of the professional baseball season here in the states. The NBA will linger on for a couple more months (I’m a huge college basketball fan, but NBA? Not so much). Football will have OTAs and the draft in the coming weeks, and this weekend will also see the return of one of my favorite sports events, The Masters (because we all know what that green jacket means).

It’s not too bad. I’ve made a return to baseball fandom in the past few years (thank you, Kansas City Royals), and I will always be a fan of my Chiefs and my Jayhawks (just about spelled ‘Chefs’ instead of ‘Chiefs’… oops), but the big anticipation for me will be what is been for the last 16 years or so, the return of college basketball in November.
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(OK… after rereading this, I know it doesn’t flow well, and is a little disjointed. That said, I’m going to let this stand, because, what the hell… I wrote today!)

Day 19,558

I have decided to join #WriteChain, and I am now committing to writing 200 words per day in my blog. One of the things I am pursuing as a goal is developing better habits, and I’m hopeful that making this commitment will help me along that path.

Among the topics that I can/should/will write about:

Professional topics: I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert. I’ve been an MCT since August of 1995, and I now focus on the latest versions of Exchange, Skype, Windows Client, Windows Server, and am currently endeavoring to augment my knowledge of Office 365 and Azure.

Personal topics: My work is a big part of my life, but my interests are as broad as the Kansas horizon. I’m a husband, a father, a son, a brother, and a friend… and probably a bit of a nuisance to people that I don’t see eye to eye with on certain topics.
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The World: Hey, I live in it to. There are things that happen that I love, despise, and can’t really understand or explain. Maybe I think a little too much about these things, but the reality is, they are worthy of a sentence or two, right?

And that’s where I hope to go with this. Live by the numbers… 30,000 days, 10,000 steps per day, starting at 5:45. Woot!

Day 19,557

I’m going to try something new, and, hopefully, it will stick. I was listening to John Fugelsang’s show in Insight SiriusXM (channel 121) the other day. He brought up this idea that human beings living an average lifespan of 30,000 days. I decided to calculate how many days I have spent on this plane of existence and came across this site, timeanddate.com.

Doing the actual calculation was a bit of an epiphany. Yes, I know that every day is a precious gift, but it changed my perspective a bit when I took a look at that number. If I live an average life, I’m at day 19,957. In 43 days,  I roll over to 20k… it’s a bit like having an odometer on your life.

Maybe I just replaced my starter.

In the coming days, I’m going to take a look at different WordPress themes. I’m going to think about where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’m going to think about my relatives who have lived very long lives, and those close to me that didn’t get their fair share.
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What came to mind is the last line from this little excerpt from “The Shawshank Redemption“. Yeah, it’s time to get busy living.

So, what do you think? Anybody have a suggestion for a new WordPress theme?

January 1, 2016. Time to once again…

… make a plan to get my collective crap together.

Some days, I’m not sure who I respect more – folks who make elaborate plans for the New Year and freely share their goals or those who keep quiet, make a few simple goals for the year and stick to them.

I have a few goals, personal and professional, that I need to keep track of.

One goal I will follow through on, and this is for both professional and personal reasons. I have never been a Microsoft MVP. I have been nominated, but have never followed through on completing the required documentation to achieve such a goal. I was nominated by a good friend and professional colleague, Enrique Lima. I was flattered that he would go to the trouble of nominating me. What I had always assumed was that Enrique had been a multiple recipient of the MVP honor from Microsoft, given his contributions to the Microsoft Certified Trainer community and the IT community as a whole. Little did I know that while we both were attending the MCT Summit in Bellevue, Washington, Enrique would be awarded his first such recognition. My mind was a bit blown. His first? Say it isn’t so. When Enrique spoke of finally receiving his first MVP, tears welled up in his eyes. It moved me.

Enrique was taken from us at a terribly young age, some time in the night following the last day of the conference. This punched us all in the gut. I owe it to Enrique’s memory to complete the required application, as well as bump up my game as a Microsoft Certified Trainer and IT professional. I’m going to hear his voice in the back of my head, his confidence, his drive, and let that push me this year and in the years to follow.

Another area related to the passing of my friend… I need to focus on my health this year and actually stick to the plan to lose a pound a week. Drink more water, eat smarter, smaller portions. I’m going to wear my pedometer and get back to ten thousand steps a day. Enrique was a wonder when it came to staying on his feet. I need to get off my ass and do more while standing. A few of my friends have gone to walking and/or standing desks. Maybe that’s the direction I need to go. One area that I know will help will be getting back out to the golf course. Somehow I jacked up my right shoulder last spring, and it seems to be getting back where it needs to be just in time for spring golf planning. I have access to some pretty decent golf courses through “The Club“, so I’m optimistic that I’ll have ample chances to get out and lose a few dozen golf balls this year. Even when I use a golf cart, you can get ten thousand steps in easy enough if you simple leave the cart on the cart path and walk to your ball.

I’m going to read more deliberately. I’ve been pretty good about seeking a balance between technical and entertainment reading in the past, with a few motivational books here and there, some technical, with a thick coating of fantasy and science fiction. I even try to spread out my selections in the SF/F genres, with healthy doses of military science fiction, hard sci-fi, fun sci-fi, epic fantasy and urban fantasy. The reading challenge posted on this site does a nice job mixing it up. It’s not outrageous, but it can be challenging and achievable. I’m currently rereading “The Sleeping Dragon” by Joel C. Rosenberg, and am only a few chapters in, so that knocks one off of the list. Let me ponder this for a moment…

  1. A book published this year… might need to wait on that one for awhile.
  2. A book you can finish in a day… there are some short motivational books that are easy to get through, especially if you use Dynamic Reader, Sprint Reader for Chrome or Spritzlet to bone up on your speed reading chops.
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  4. A book you’ve been meaning to read… in a recent chat, a friend mentioned Glen Cook’s “The Black Company” series. I’ve had the first book on my bookshelf to the right of my nightstand gathering dust for too long (but I’m going to still try to find the audiobook first). Another option would be the Foundation series. I’ve had that title on the back burner too long.
  5. A book recomended by your local librarian or bookseller… this one might be a little more complicated. I wonder if I can swap out one of the principals over at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction on KU’s campus. Chris McKitterick is about as knowledgeable a person one will find regarding sci-fi.
  6. A book you should have read in school… I need to think about this one a little more.
  7. A book chosen for you by your spouse, partner, sibling, child, or BFF… my spouse doesn’t read fiction, but I have a couple of kids that regularly have their noses buried in a new title. I will consult with them accordingly.
  8. A book published before you were born… I might have to crawl back into the annals for this one. Old Asimov? Clarke? Heinlein? Maybe an early Hugo or Nebula award winner? Or something from Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft. This definitely has some possibilities.
  9. A book that was banned at some point… There are several sites that provide info on SFF titles that have been banned at some point. WorldsWithoutEnd has a nice list, and io9 has a short list of 10 banned books most people have heard of. Interesting… I’ve read about half of the books on the io9 list. Maybe I’m more subversive than I previously thought.
  10. A book you previously abandoned… boy, there are plenty of titles on this list. Ugh.
  11. A book you own but have never read… see immediately above. I have no idea how many books I’ve purchased on impulse thinking I’d dive right in and digest a title.
  12. A book that intimidates you… something ridiculously thick perhaps? Maybe a Terry Goodkind or a Brandon Sanderson epic? (No, I’m not going to try to pack the entire Wheel of Time series into one year)
  13. A book you’ve read at least once… covered. I’ve done that a few times of late, as I just finished “Dune” and “Dune Messiah” in the last month or two.

That’s a start. I think it’s interesting how a person can document one set of resolutions while thinking about another set of resolutions. More to come.

More to come.