2005 Goals, How’d I do??

On January 6th of this year I made a list of goals to accomplish throughout the year. Here’s a short review to see how I did.

– Healthier lifestyle. Workout more, eat fast food less
Well, so-so on this one. Not really where I want to be. I do eat fast-food much less, but still don’t really work-out. I did start playing hockey this year, but that only accounts for an hour to hour and a half of good activity per week. I’ll continue this one in to 2006

– More one on one time with kids
This one is tough, because each kid is so demanding. It was a good year with Brandon because he’s getting older and doesn’t require the same amount of baby sitting as his sisters. I really think 2006 will be better overall for all the kids. Believe me, when they’re less annoying, they’re much easier to spend time with!

– Blog more. I want a better picture of my events of a year
Yikes, I failed pretty miserably at this one. There are 2 main reasons for it. My broken laptop and a little game called Tibia. I still don’t have a new laptop, but I do play Tibia a lot less and because of it, I have started blogging again.

– Bye bye Microsoft. Convert server and workstation to Linux. Bring in a Mac for Digital photography. I can’t convert laptop because it’s my companies. Building a kids computer sometime this year.Linux or Windows? I’m thinking Linux!. Wife’s laptop, can she run Linux or is she a slave to Windows. She will have to decide that one on her own.
Here’s one that actually saw a good deal of action. I have in the house now, one Linux server running Debian(it’s hosting this site), I’ve also gotten a computer in the living room for the kids(and me) that is running exclusivity Ubuntu right now. I do still have a Windows SBS2003 server and a XP workstation and the wife still runs XP and I really don’t see that changing anytime soon. I was looking at Mac Mini at the end of the year, but ended up getting an iPod video instead. I don’t regret that decision one bit. Because of it, I’ve been able to start listening to podcasts again. 2006 will be the year a Mac gets in this house though. Just not sure when.

– Better task management. Getting organized. Internal web site, wiki, calendar
Ummm, I don’t even want to talk about this one! :)

– Get Kdawg blogging and/or podcasting
Well, he still doesn’t blog or podcast, so I guess this one marks yet another failure.

Some other low points:
– My job | I have the ‘It’s time to start looking’ bug
– I watched hardly any Nascar this year. All that’s on our frick’n TV is cartoons
– I was sick a lot the first 4 – 5 months of the year
– TechTV got annihilated by G4TV(Comcast)

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Some high points:
– Overall everyone in my family is healthy and doing well
– Even though work kind of sucks, it’s been the best year our company has ever seen
– I started a photography club in my town that’s actually starting to take off. 2006 should really be a fun year with it.

I’m sure there were more low/high points, but ultimately I’m glad the year is over. I look forward to a new year and new opportunities that may lay ahead. And will take all the bumps in the road in stride, just like always! Peace!

Happy New Year——

What’s on the agenda for the weekend

Well, if the week never ends(which is how it’s feeling right now), I’ll be fighting MX records problems all weekend while trying to get one of two parties to admit blame. What a load of crap this can be sometimes!

If I do get this issue off of my plate, we have an opportunity to have a good holiday weekend. My wife usually works weekends and holidays, but this weekend she is only working Saturday so we have the potential to have two whole days together. Tomorrow is Brandons third skating lesson. I’ll be able to skate with him this week now that I have skates again. Sunday we some kind of a party to go, I think it’s a baptism party, but I don’t remember. Then Sunday evening is filled with 600 miles of racing action. Too bad that crappy Ryan Newman is on the pole again. Yawn!

As of right now Monday is still wide open to idea’s. I do think I’m going out for some hockey Monday evening though. See how the new pro tacks handle!

Weather will play a big factor in some of our decisions, but right now weather for the weekend looks fairly promising other than some light rain at night. Temperatures looks awesome hoovering between 65 – 70 which is where I like it!

Soccer mom and hockey dad

Tonight is the start of Brandons soccer program. What makes this really interesting is that my wife has taken on the role of coach for this group of kids. Yes, that right, my wife who knows nothing about soccer! She says she was advised that it wasn’t that important(and maybe it’s not for a bunch of 4 year olds). I hope he has fun at it. Unfortunately he’ll be close to done by the time I get there after work.

Then tomorrow we start ice skating lessons with him. He’s been ice skating a couple of times now, but this will be nice since we shouldn’t be dealing with a lot of other folks on the ice. Then who knows, maybe by fall he’ll be ready for some beginner hockey classes.

My first parent teacher conference

I got to meet my sons school teacher today and see his classroom as part of my first parent-teacher confernce. He’s in a special pre-school cirriculum at the school where he will be attending k-5 in a little over a year. He’s been in this class since Januaury of this year. He really enjoys it. It was interesting to hear how he was doing, even though it all wasn’t good news. But at least we know what we need to work on with him.

The Naughty Duo!

These two have been conspiring and pulling off acts of living room demolition all day. I finally caught them in the act, and sent each to their own corner. It was just too funny that I had to capture it. Even though my wife says she’s had to do this before, it was a first me me to send two to the naughty corner at the same time.

The blog cuts off the right side of the photo. [Click here to see the full image]
The Naughty Duo!

The miserableness continues

This morning I woke up feeling anything but fine. I did go to work, but cancelled my morning appointment as I really don’t feel like driving an hour. Now Kaitlyn has the Rotavirus. Poor thing :(. Jennifers spirits seem to be better today as she’s getting over her Rotavirus. And the doctor prescribed some eye drops for Brandon. What a sad household…

House of sickness

There’s so much sickness in my house that we had to cancel Easter yesterday for the kids. Poor Jennifer could not keep anything down. She finally stopped heaving around 8pm last night. My son has something going on with is eye, possibly pink eye. Now tonight, I feel like I got something brewing. My throat is starting to get scratchy.

D00de, You’re Getting A Dell!!

Part of my 2005 agenda was to get a computer put together that will become kind of a family computer, to be placed in the living room for easy access, and so the kids can start getting some experience. Last week I started pricing components to build one. This isn’t going to be a gaming machine or a place to edit digital video, so top of the line was not needed. I couldn’t believe how fast the price rose as I was building this mid-level system.

I decided that I would still need to wait a little longer to finance this project. Well, today while surfing, I came across a Dell deal on gotapex for a Dell Demension 4700 2.8 w/HT and with a 19″ LCD for $549. Wow! So I went ahead and ordered it. Spec wise it’s not the most impressive machine, but it has almost everything I want. The only thing I will add after the fact is more memory and a Dual layer DVD burner.

It’s coming with XP Home edition, but I really don’t care as I have full intentions on running Fedora on it. However, it would have been nice to not have to pay the Microsoft tax at all.

So this complete system with monitor is costing less than $600 delivered. I think it will work out fine for everyone.

Update: Got an email yesterday stating that the thing has been shipped already. Really amazing!

Update 2: Have confirmation from my wife that two Dell boxes were delivered.

Things are calm again…

The snow has stopped falling, the cleanup is complete, and our daughters b-day party is over. Our newspaper reported that we had 13 inches of snow yesterday, but it sure felt like more than that. My snowblower went on the blink again, but fortunately I was able to clear our my driveway before a belt popped off rendering it useless.

However, because of the weather, about half our guests did not show up for the party. When everyone left, we still had three large pizza’s left. Guess what I’m having for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next week?

Here’s a few pictures I took while I was shoveling yesterday morning.