Family

We've been back home a couple of weeks now, and I'm back to my commuting to DC every week. Hawaii is starting to fade into a nice memory. I'm hoping that we get a chance to return one day. There are plenty of photos in the gallery if you want to look.

In the mean time, we're focusing on small things - friends and family, minor house projects, and I'm doing some upgrading to the Hearthstone Data Center. :-) Here's a page describing the NAS build.

Next will be finding time to make visits to the White House (Madge, TN version) and to Poverty Flats for long overdue family visits and distribution of souvenirs. Then there's a tentatively planned trip to Houston to visit more family. I think we'll stay busy this year...hopefully not TOO busy!

We're slowly packing up and enjoying our last few hours here in Hawaii. The Waikiki Beach Marriott staff have been excellent hosts and the room was fantastic.

View from room

I suppose my status has something to do with it, but they gave us a fantastic room in the corner with views of the mountains, Diamond Head and the ocean. Two balconies so we could open the sliding doors and have a wonderful breeze through the room. They gave us a late checkout so we don't have to leave the room until 6pm this evening.

Just a quick well-wish out to you all - here's hoping to a joyful and prosperous 2012 for all of us. I've again been slacking with my blog entries here as most of my infrequent updates have ended up on Google Plus or Facebook. I'll try to do better at putting things here first and linking to them outside.

We went fishing on Saturday (Oct 22, 2011) at Natchez Trace State Park near Lexington, TN. and had a great time! I picked up Trey around 9am and then stopped by and got Sherman and little Sherman around 10. We took the Durango so we had plenty of room - we even took Trey's little 4-wheeler. He calls it his "bike". We got to the Pin Oak campground at around 12:30 and met up with Mom, Ruthie, Shelli, and Henry. Pop, Forrest, and Cash were out on the water when we got there, but they showed up around 45 minutes later. In the mean time, we went down to the play area and let the boys wade. Cash and Forrest joined us down there. Then we got the word that lunch was ready, so we headed back up to the campground.

Lunch was really great - lots to pick from. The campsite has a nice, big picnic table and we had plenty of room for everything and everyone. Skookie came down and joined us also - he was staying in the lodge. The boys rode around on the 4 wheeler while the grown-ups finished lunch.

I'm trying to spend more of my interactive time on Google + now and less on the Facebook these days. I really like how G+ is set up and how it works (my profile is at https://plus.google.com/109898559193504595928). The never ending Facebook experimentation with how their service works is annoying. I know they benefit most from advertizing and that drives their desire to push as much of the content (especially that we post ourselves) as publicly as they can get away with. This makes it an easier proposition for me personally, but I know it will be a long, likely impossible, process to move many if not most of my friends list from Facebook to G+. So I will probably have a dual presence for the time being. What I may start doing more often is to post here on my blog and then cross-post to both FB and G+. However the way G+ works, it's much better to participate in conversations there, which really doesn't lend itself well to crossposting. It will be quite interesting to see how this all shakes out.

I finally got fed up with Comcast's terrible customer service and this week I cancelled all services from them other than high speed internet. I had to keep that because I need the extra bandwidth, and frankly once I got to their level 2 service they've been good. But for the video services, it has been terrible. I had a service call in for nearly 2 weeks with no resolution, two scheduled but no-show technician visits, and a no-call back from a supervisor. I finally said forget it and contacted DirecTV about switching to satellite service. DirecTV bent over backwards to get me set up and I had service in 4 days. Would have been 3, but I had to make an out-of-town trip.

So far I'm really happy with the new service. The technology is far more advanced than what Comcast had, especially around HD and the DVR. The amazing thing to me is that no one at Comcast even nominally tried to keep me as a customer, even with the lost revenue (a significant amount!). Well, I'm not looking back. We have better service, and are also saving a lot of money: $90/month the first year and nearly $70 for year 2.

It's been nice being home for the past month and a half, and I look forward to the limited travel for the remainder of the year. I'm also looking forward to actually being off work from December 16 to Jan 5. I'll probably drive Patrisha crazy in the process, but I'll sure enjoy the break. I'm making a day-turn to Minneapolis tomorrow - flying up in the morning and coming home tomorrow night. Makes for a long day, but still no hotel night. I expect that there will be only one more trip and then that should be it until 2011.

I sure am sick of getting sick nearly every onset of winter for the past several years. I wonder if it's a function of age. Or maybe my work/travel. Poor sleeping for so many years (mostly fixed now though)? Well, whatever it is, it ain't fun. This is the second year in a row, and probably the 10th or 11th in the last 18 that I've either had the flu, or a cold/cough that has degenerated into bronchitis. The first time it happened was when Patrisha and I were first moving back from Detroit to Memphis. We both got it at the same time and spent most of the time when we were moving into the old Sand Fox Cove house in coughing fits. We finally went and got treatment and got over that, but at that time my doctor told me that I would be more susceptible to bronchitis in the future and especially as I got older. How prophetic!

...except maybe my knees. And my ankles. And I have to wear reading glasses now. And my hair (especially my beard!) is getting gray. Ok, maybe I do feel 50. Oh, well - I'll just have to deal with it.

My lovely wife threw a once-in-a-lifetime party for me on my birthday. We had a fantastic time! Lots of friends and family, great food, and lots of partying. The caterer did a great job, and the facilities were top-notch.  I'll let the photos tell the story - you can see them on the photo gallery here. Mom & Dad's photos are here. Patrisha also posted some on Facebook.

Now it's time to start that run to retirement!