Bullet Points

Sep 23, 2011 ∞

A long-delayed update

So, that blogging every day thing didn’t last long, did it? A little bit of work craziness and life busyness and all of a sudden it’s been six weeks. So what’s been going on? Since I last posted, I:

Took a one-day trip to Montreal and back on the company jet for a dinner meeting
Ran a half-marathon in 2:07:25
Got runner’s knee and had to avoid running for two weeks
Traveled to St. Louis for the FAA’s National Software and Airborne Electronic Hardware Conference and took the family along
Went on from St. Louis to Nashville and helped Andy Osenga build a space ship
While in Nashville, got to hang out with the estimable Geof Morris, Mike Terry, and Josh Stockment
Also while in Nashville, went on a quick jaunt with Geof down to Huntsville, AL to meet Stephen and Misty Granade, who were even more awesome than I expected them to be.
After meeting Stephen, caught up on all 9 existing episodes of his quite hilarious podcast Disasterpiece Theatre.
Developed and rolled out a new website project
Got a new 27" iMac
Started piano lessons for my oldest daughter

So yeah. I’m still struggling with how to best pull together the content that I share every day via Google Reader, Google+, and Twitter. I’d like to be able to centralize it here… but I haven’t managed to work that into my process yet. I’ll keep trying.

Mar 8, 2010 ∞

Bullet Points for a Monday Morning #5

We have high temperatures in the 50’s forecast for this week. Incredibly thankful for spring to be making an appearance.
Stayed up too late watching the Oscars last night. Have watched only two of the films nominated across all categories: District 9 and Star Trek. One of these days I’ll catch up on some of the others. Very little time for watching movies these days.
Star Trek is the last movie I’ve watched in a theater. Before that I think it was The Dark Knight the year before. At least that gives us lots of choices to watch on DVD.
Three day work week for me this week. Then on Thursday we road trip to Indiana. Becky and the girls will drop me off in Indianapolis where I’ll hang out/ride along with Andy Osenga for a couple days while he plays some house shows.
Becky and the girls will head up an hour north of Indy to visit some friends who moved there from CR last year. Everyone is pretty darn excited about it.
Have the details lined up for Andy O to play a “house show” at Brewed Awakenings in CR on Monday, April 19th. Hope to get the “official” confirmation from Andy this week so I can start publicity in earnest.

Dec 7, 2009 ∞

Bullet points for a Monday #3

There is a more substantive post or two in here, I promise. But for now - bullet points.

Sewer pipe was replaced, all the pipes are now flowing smoothly. Thankful for drains that drain and that it all got done before the snow started.
We got our Christmas tree yesterday and amazingly enough Katie hasn’t tried to pull it down yet.
In the “for the first time in over eight months” file: all three girls slept through the night last night. AWESOME.
I was invited to fill the pulpit at our old church plant for the Sunday after Christmas. (The new pastor will be on vacation.) I’m honored to be asked. Text will be 1 Peter 1.
Oh yeah, did I say snow? We got just a bit overnight, but the forecasters are calling for the SNOWPOCALYPSE on Tuesday night and Wednesday - or at least 6 - 12 inches of the white stuff, along with 40 - 50 mph winds.
Matt Chandler is the real deal. Continuing to pray for his recovery from brain surgery. This pre-surgery video is awesome.
Every time I think I’ve gotten to some conclusion on whether we’re at the church we should be at long-term, something else comes up that pushes me back the other way. Kinda feels like we’re still in a holding pattern. Still praying.
And to finish with the truly trivial, we watched Nebraska do again on Saturday night what they seem to do best - snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Nobody deserved to win that Nebraska-Texas game. Texas came away the winner anyway. *sigh*

Sep 28, 2009 ∞

Bullet points for a Monday Morning #4

Blog posting has been a bit slow lately since I typically post during breaks at work and my blog has mysteriously become inaccessible from work. IT was no help in fixing it. I’m using Posterous as a sort of go-between - a solution that works but that I’m not fond of.
Had a good, full weekend.
Marriage conference Friday night and Saturday morning at church. Very good.
Watched a fun Hawkeye game Saturday night. They whooped Penn State good.
Played on the worship team Sunday morning, lots of fun.
Finally got the fascia and soffet on the garage painted. That’s been on my to-do list since last fall. It looks a lot better.
Found out Friday afternoon that the job transfer I’ve been trying to get for the past 6 months will be approved. Will post something more officially on it once I go through all the official steps.
The upcoming two weeks before the transfer will happen have the potential to drag a good bit.
I have two book reviews that I need to get posted here before the publishers demand their books back. Problem is, I’ve only gotten one of them read so far. Posting one would be a start, I guess.

Jul 24, 2009 ∞

Bullet Points for a Friday #2

Slow-ish week turns into busy weekend. Lots of family in town, softball tournament, leading worship. Fun, but busy.
Oh, the occasion for all the family visiting: Laura turns 5 on Monday. Hard to believe I’ve been a parent for five years now.
No matter how cool the gong is on “The Great Gate of Kiev”, the solo piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition is far and away superior to the orchestrated version.
Just when I think my homebrew DVR is all working and I’m ready to blog about it, something else isn’t working quite right. I’ll be installing the Windows 7 Release Candidate tonight.
I’ve been flexing my web design muscles again a bit this week and it’s kinda fun.
I’m down 7 or so pounds in the #20lbchallenge this month. This weekend’s meal plans will be a challenge to that accomplishment. (Two months to go!)
Looks like I’ll have a quick trip to Ottawa, Ontario for business in a few weeks. Wish it were Toronto instead so I could meet up with Dan & Laura.
I haven’t had the heart or inspiration to blog about politics lately.
All the things that are on my mind re: God and church are things that need to be worked through first in our lives before they’re worked out on this blog.
I reactivated the IntenseDebate commenting plugin - they’ve improved it a lot since last time I tried it. Now with Facebook and Twitter authentication! Leave a comment below and let me know what you’d like to have me blog about.

May 1, 2009 ∞

Bullet Points for a Friday Morning #3

Monday road trip to Nashville was awesome. Saw some friends, made some new ones, saw a great concert. (Geof recorded it and you can download MP3s.)
Driving 1300 miles in two days will make you a little bit saddle sore.
Work has been somewhere between ridiculously crazy and insanely crazy for the past couple of weeks. Looks like it’ll stay that way until the middle of May.
I’ll be traveling to Toronto for work in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to finally meeting Dan and Laura in person.
Listened to about 15 hours of D. A. Carson sermons/lectures on my road trip. That guy is an amazing teacher.
At the moment I’m listening to Manchester Orchestra (which isn’t a symphony orchestra, Dad, it’s a rock band) and they’re pretty darn good.
Guess it’s time to get back to work.

Feb 24, 2009 ∞

Bullet points for a Tuesday Morning #2

Laziness, and no big topics to contemplate. Put those two together and you end up with my blog as of late. Sorry folks. So, a make-up post of sorts.

Only four more weeks until the baby is due. I’m sure we don’t really understand quite how life will change going from 2 to 3 kids, but we’ll figure it out. Excitement is building among all the residents of our little home. (Well, maybe not among the cats.)
We’re now several weeks in to our first Stonebridge small group and we’re really enjoying it. It’s fun to make some new friends. I did get a few weird looks last night when I briefly touched on the whole gay marriage thing, but my lament about Christians being known more for their support of Prop 8 than for their love for their neighbor was well-received.
I’m applying for a new position here at work - a fantastic opportunity. Not going to say too much about it here just now, but I have an interview tomorrow at 1 pm.
Another thing that’s sneaking up on us - Laura will turn 5 this summer, and so the school questions start coming up. We’ve pretty well decided to homeschool her for the time being, and communicated that intent to our local elementary school last month. Now I’ve gotta get the ins and outs of the homeschool support/oversight system understood in preparation for next fall. Oh, and sign up with HSLDA.
When I have trouble coming up with something for the fifth bullet, you know that either things have been fairly uneventful or I’m just having a horrible time remembering anything. *sigh*

Jan 23, 2009 ∞

Bullet Points for a Friday Morning #2

I’ve been neglecting this blog for the past few weeks, so it’s time for an update of sorts. So… bullet points!

We’re in the home stretch of the pregnancy… just a little more than two months until baby #3 is scheduled to make his/her appearance. The girls have finally decided that they’d like a little brother - they want to have a prince to play with them when they’re playing princesses.
We’ve decided on sticking at Stonebridge for the forseeable future, and we’re starting to plug in. First up: small groups. The group we’re joining starts up next Monday night. It’ll be good to just sit down and get to know some folks.
In the vein of church stuff, I’ve contacted the music pastor at Stonebridge and arranged a time to get together and talk about how I might occasionally serve on the worship team. The key word here is occasional. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m indispensable. I think it can be worked out.
On the work front, the project I’d been working on for the past 18 months got shut down last week. All of us working it are getting transferred to new projects and new groups. I’m going to be joining a group that focuses on aircraft certification. It’ll mean a lot less coding and a lot more documenting, but it’ll be very good experience and learning for my DER ticket.
It’s still winter in Iowa, but it’s been at least tolerable the past week. It got up above freezing yesterday, and we haven’t had any significant snowfall this week. I can handle winter when it’s like this.
I’m really looking forward to a weekend with very little on the schedule. Nothing scheduled for Saturday, just church on Sunday. Time to crash.

Well, enough for now.

Dec 5, 2008 ∞

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Yes, we have a weekend coming up. Unfortunately, we’ll be heading into the weekend with a house full of sickies - Becky, both girls, and I are all fighting colds, coughs, and sore throats. Ick. So, here’s my list of guesses of things we’ll do this weekend.

We’ll want to sleep in tomorrow morning, but won’t really get to, since the girls pretty much are up at 7:00 regardless of what day it is.
We’ll rent another DVD or two from the store and catch up on a bit of our movie watching. Maybe Wall-E or Hancock.
We’ll hit CiCi’s for cheap-o pizza.
We won’t get to church, given that we’re all feeling icky.
We’ll visit the library sometime… probably Saturday.
We’ll watch some college football… most definitely the Florida/Alabama game.
I won’t post anything more interesting than this to the blog.

There’s my profound list for Friday. I’ll check back in on Monday to see what kind of score I get.

Nov 13, 2008 ∞

Bullet Points for a Thursday Morning #2

It’s been a crazy week so I’m reduced to one of these play-by-play lists. Sorry.

Note to self: eating at Texas Roadhouse only two hours before playing a rec league basketball game: not such a good idea.
Looking forward to getting out of town this weekend.
There is pretty much nothing cuter than a four-year-old excited about being invited to a friend’s birthday party.
Is Thanksgiving really only two weeks away? Where has the year gone?
I’m getting a kick out of Fake Geof Morris this morning.
It’s been far too long since I’ve listened to Mel Brooks' The Producers soundtrack. Hilariously clever lyrics.
I’m with Kari - it’s too early for Christmas music.

Oct 27, 2008 ∞

Observations from the weekend

Your house doesn’t have to be amazingly clean to invite friends over.
Even if it was amazingly clean when the night starts, it won’t be when it ends. Not with 4 kids playing for three hours.
That’s OK. You can always clean up again.
Good food + good conversation = a great time.
Hearing friends' back stories is fantastic.
When your friends read your blog, you have to try to remember which stories you’ve already blogged and thus shouldn’t re-tell.
We should do this more often.

Aug 11, 2008 ∞

Bullet points for a Monday Morning #3

A week without a blog update + lack of creativity = desperate measures. Hence, the bullet points.

This past weekend felt far more like autumn than summer; this morning when I woke up it was 53°F outside and 63°F in the house. Beautiful sleeping weather. It’s gonna warm up a bit this week, but nothing too bad.
I thought it felt like I ran into a strand of web as I walked into the dining room this morning. A few minutes later I felt something on my neck. Becky, you can thank me later for killing that spider. :-)
My sermon on Saturday night went pretty well. I intended to link to it here but didn’t get it uploaded last night. It’ll have to wait.
Now I need to get my backside in gear for my next sermon, only two weeks hence. How do I focus all I want to say about worship into 30 minutes?
Next week I’m headed to Denver for some training and a conference. I think it’ll probably be warmer in Denver than it will be at home while I’m gone.
Nick & Allie led worship Saturday night at Imago and did a fantastic job. Allie wrote a new tune for the hymn Under His Wings that has been stuck in my head all weekend. Thanks a lot, Allie. ;-)
My poor backyard is being overtaken by crabgrass. Gotta do something about that.

Well, now, that was random, eh?

May 22, 2008 ∞

Bullet Points from Montreal

I’ve been in Montreal since Monday night, and it’s my first trip here, and for that matter, my first trip out of the country. I don’t have any profound essays to write but a bunch of little observations that work most easily as bullet points. So here goes.

It’s the little things that mess with you. Ordered a Whopper at Burger King the other night (I was craving the fries) and was asked if I wanted “the trio”. What in the world is “the trio”? Ends up that’s what I know better as a combo. [lightbulb goes on]
The roads are bad. They aren’t marked very well, the lanes are narrow, and the traffic is horrible.
The other weird traffic thing: rapidly-flashing green lights. As far as I can tell, a rapid green is equivalent to a green left arrow in the US; it’s letting you know that it’s safe to turn left, because the folks opposite you still have a red. Rather non-intuitive, but it works once you get the hang of it.
Sewing machine stores in shopping malls. Apparently people in Canada really like to sew or something.
A big report came out today in Montreal that is the result of a year-long commission holding hearings and taking suggestions on how to deal with all the ethnic and cultural issues they have in Quebec. It’s interesting listening to talk radio this afternoon to hear what people have to say about it. The commission’s conclusion is that the worst of the division is more stirred up by the media than by the ethnic groups involved. Figures.
Of course French is the predominant language here in Montreal, but pretty much everyone I’ve run into switches pretty much effortlessly into English. Still, it frustrates me a bit that they have to; it feels like I’m making them do me a favor rather than being able to just interact with them on their terms.
Tim Horton’s (a donut/breakfast chain - think a Canadian Dunkin' Donuts) has tasty food, but no trash cans. Weird. It feels like a fast food, there are lots of tables to sit and eat… but apparently they expect you to just leave your trash on the table. Very strange.

Well, enough of that. Still, it’s been an interesting place to visit. Tomorrow I fly home.

May 13, 2008 ∞

Tuesday morning this'n'that

I have a couple other posts floating around in my head, but need to gather some thoughts (and pictures) before writing them. So… a little this’n’that, aka bullet points for a Tuesday morning.

Softball last night was fantastic. Beautiful weather, good competitive game. Oh, and we won.
Not my favorite: opposing pitchers who whine about us taking walks when they are unable to throw a strike.
Definitely my favorite: Becky, who struck out (looking!) said whiny pitcher to start the seventh inning.
My list of projects is getting long. I’ve accomplished some, but others are going to slide right into June without me even touching them. :-(
Next week: headed to Montreal. Looking forward to it.
Also next week: Becky’s folks come to visit. This will be two years in a row that they’ve come to visit the week that I’ve been on travel. Hmmm… wonder what I should infer from that?
These Fractal Drawers might be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen… at least this week. (Saw them on Boing Boing, then Daniel shared them, too… thanks Dan!)

May 5, 2008 ∞

Bullet Points for a Monday Morning #2

It was an amazingly beautiful weekend. Fortunately the beautiful weather is sticking around for today so we can play softball.
Oh, and I’m going to ump the second game of the night. I don’t remember if I’ve said it before, but I enjoy umping games almost more than I enjoy playing them.
Got a bunch of projects completed on the house this weekend.
New carpet put down in basement: complete.
Nasty mold scrubbed from laundry room wall: complete.
Pegboard hung in laundry room to organize tools: complete.
Tools organized: not so complete.
Crock Pot cord repaired: complete.
Music leading both Saturday night and Sunday morning: yep.
Double-edged sword: if I had the Versus channel I could’ve watched the Dallas Stars play last night. On the other hand, had I stayed up to watch, I would’ve had to watch until the fourth OT to see them win.
Go Stars! Bring on those Red Wings.
If the Stars win the Stanley Cup this year I’m gonna buy that Mike Modano jersey I’ve always wanted.
Enough with the bullets already.

Apr 15, 2008 ∞

Bullet Points for a Tuesday Morning

FINALLY with some warmer weather here in Iowa. Softball is supposed to start in two weeks and it’s been too cold to get out to practice. Tomorrow, though, we’re supposed to hit 70. Hallelujah!
I drove to Naperville, IL last Friday to see Andy O, Eric Peters, and Jeremy Casella play a concert. Hung out with them before and after the show (with the “after” including pizza at Giordanos!), had a great time. What a great group of guys, and so darn talented to boot.
I posted a bunch of pictures from the concert on Flickr.
My Flickr Pro account (gifted from Geof last year) is about to expire. I want to pay to continue it for another year, but for some reason when I go to pay it won’t accept my password… the same password it just accepted for me to log in. It happens on two different browsers. Something funky is going on.
What, you say, it’s tax day today? Somehow April 15 is a lot less exciting when you’ve had your taxes filed and refund in hand for a couple months already.
And to come full circle, back to softball. We’re actually going to be playing in two different leagues this year: our usual Monday night church league, and then on a Friday-night city league team to which we were invited by a friend of mine from work. Becky had to think all of about two seconds before agreeing to play in the second league… should be a lot of fun.

Jan 31, 2008 ∞

Bullet points for a Thursday Morning

Playing basketball three times a week is good for your game and your weight, but sure does make you sore.
Hard to believe it’s almost February already. Next weekend: trip to Lincoln, NE to see Caedmon’s Call and Andy O.
Five-hour road trip to see said musicians: seems relatively short. Oh, and Mom is coming down to watch the girls so Becky and I get a couple days out to ourselves!
Doing double-duty this weekend - leading at both Imago and Noelridge.
I’ve registered a domain name to hang out a shingle for web design services. Don’t know how much business I’ll manage to drum up, but after doing so many freebie websites for friends over the past several years, it’s fun to think that I could actually get paid for it instead.
Tweet140 mocks me even as I’m writing this post.
Haven’t traveled for work yet this year but that’s gonna change soon - there’s the threat of a last-minute trip to Seattle in mid-February, and a scheduled trip to Augusta, GA in early March.
I think I might actually only finish two books in January, which is a real low for me. It’s not that I haven’t been reading - it’s that I’ve been reading a long, thick book that has to be read slowly.

This excuse for a real post brought to you by the two Advil I took with breakfast this morning.

Jan 9, 2008 ∞

Bullet points for a Wednesday

Just realized I never gave you all any feedback on the first service at Imago Christi. It went pretty well - had 60 in attendance. Music was OK, though I starting singing the wrong verse of one hymn at one point, which threw everybody off. :-(
Just started my new book list for 2008. You can find the link on the sidebar. Only one book on it so far.
I have resolved to not get any more books from the library until I read through the pile that’s next to my bed. It has grown to where it won’t fit under the lip of the bedside table any more - must be 15 books there. They’re good things that I want to read, I just keep preempting them with newer stuff from the library. Gotta whittle that pile down.
Just heard that Andrew Peterson will be doing a concert in Cedar Rapids the day after my birthday. Happy Birthday to me! Hey Andrew and Heather, when will you be back in the area for spring break? Want to come down to CR?
Speaking of Andrew and Heather, we’ve been plotting (well, Becky’s been plotting) our trip to WA this summer for the wedding. It’s looking like fun.
Next note on the wedding: I’m gonna have to buy a suit. I haven’t owned a suit in years. The blazer I wore during college hasn’t fit me through the shoulders since probably 2000.
It’s harder than it should be to remember that the Saturday night service at Imago wasn’t a one-time event. I’ve got to plan music for this Saturday… should do that today.

Dec 7, 2007 ∞

Bullet Points for a Friday Morning

I’ve stuck you, my blog readers, with far too many links this week and not enough other stuff. Now, that being said, they are all good links. You’ll find good stuff if you visit them.
Finally thinking about Christmas shopping. I think it’s gonna be a Amazon year. I have some good book ideas for almost everybody.
Chatted with Ryan for a while yesterday and it’s interesting to see us progressing remarkably parallel paths of theological thought and reading. Makes me wonder what it was in our common upbringing that’s moving us that way.
In the same chat conversation there were enough ideas come up to give me an outline for one of those books that I’d love to write but keep lamenting I never have the time for. I really should make an effort.
Tonight we’re doing Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Becky’s been looking forward to steak all week. Hooray for Christmas bonuses!
Church plant update: the lease agreement for the building was signed yesterday. Assuming the other party signs it (which they should), we’re officially in the building and will be starting January 5. Awesome and scary at the same time.
You know, if you go back to the real definition of awesome, something that inspires “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like”, then the scary part I juxtaposed in the previous bullet is pretty much redundant.

Nov 9, 2007 ∞

I love the smell of comment spam in the mornings... and other thoughts for Friday

Yep, 105 comments held in moderation. All of ‘em spam. I guess I should tighten up Spam Karma 2 a little bit. But still, not hard to bulk-moderate ‘em all into oblivion.

Other thoughts from the week:

Cell phones showed up yesterday via Fedex. It was easy to activate them, then dialed 0 to get out of a weird automated service and talked to a very nice real person at Verizon who got our number port going.
One odd thing: in the store and on their website, Verizon claims that porting a number over will take between one and four hours. When I actually initiated the port yesterday afternoon, the woman told me it could take up to 72 hours. It’s been 16 hours so far, and still nothing.
We’ve had colds most all week at our house. Not fun. Haven’t actually slept through the night in a couple of weeks. No wonder I’m tired.
Going back to Standard Time from Daylight Time makes it feel like winter to me. That’s what I associate with winter: that it’s dark by suppertime. And so it is this week. On the positive side, we’ve been getting to bed earlier, though whether that’s due more to the time change or the sickness is anyone’s guess.
It sounds like we are ever-so-close to having a building deal done for our church plant. It will be nice to get a start date set and then get this thing going. I’m guessing the first Saturday in January - that would be 1/5/08.
I had no meetings scheduled at work yesterday, and none again today. Must be some kind of record. Not that I’m complaining.

So that’s pretty much my week. Not very exciting.

Oh, one last thing I should mention: congratulations to my friend Geof who has won a Space Flight Awareness Award from NASA. It’s a big deal. Wish I could come with you to see the shuttle launch, G, but I don’t think I’ll get free. And I’m not a single woman, either, so I’m a bit out of your target demographic. ;-)