Tag: work

Categories
life

Invigorating

I worked 16 hours yesterday to finish a database transfer to a new server for a client. This morning – only a couple of hours after going to bed – life demanded that I be on duty again. We had a mouse in a mousetrap that I had to release (it was a glue trap so the mouse was essentially uninjured). I was not going to kill it with the kids around – especially when we live close enough to fields where we can release it. That was the beginning of things to do that prevented me from sleeping even so late as 8:00am. I put in another 2 1/2 hours configuring the server for our client before everything was in working order and then there were errands to run etc.

I’m sure that that kind of crunch time would be draining for most people (and sometimes it is for me), but I find that finishing a major project – even if that means working extreme hours – leaves me refreshed. I have the load of the project removed and when I work long hours to finish it I also look forward to taking some comp time later which means actual daytime hours to spend with my family or working on my own projects.

By the time today was done I had not only bought Christmas stockings for the whole family (which we have meant to do for years) but I had decorated them for each person in the family. Now I have comp time to take next week and Christmas stockings that I can enjoy for years to come.

Categories
life

Four Day Weekend

In all my time at my current job I have enjoyed my various paid holidays, but never, until now have I enjoyed the holiday because of the break from work. I am coming in to this Thanksgiving weekend tired from some heavy work projects and also from some things outside of work (which is why posting has been so inconsistent lately) and so I actually feel like I need the break from work. I guess we call that good timing.

Categories
life pictures

Crazy Storms

Most of the people in Utah know about the crazy storms that we have had the past 2 days (mostly yesterday). I thought I would share just two pictures showing the results in our yard.

Sunflowers after a windstorm

These are our sunflowers. They were already bending under the weight of their ripening heads, but they were over 9 feet tall. I’m surprised to see that two of them are still standing.

 Fence hit by pool

This is our fence, which we just put up this year. The wind caught a plastic pool in our backyard and blew it around the house and into the fence. The toprail is bent and will have to be replaced, and we have to  pour more cement around the gatepost so that it can be secure again.

It could have been worse – we could have lost our trees like the four trees that were downed in our church parking lot.

Categories
life

Loosen Up

Over the course of this conference, while I was staying away from home I took note of the fact that I seem to get more carefree when I’m away from home. I act more like a teenager, without a burden of care and responsibility. It seems that I am not alone in this – or else everyone else is generally more carefree than I am by nature (that is a possibility). For example, an interchange with one of my co-workers last night. In response to something I said (which I can’t remember):

Michelle: Don’t get cute.

Me: I’m already cute.

Michelle: Don’t get smart.

Me: I already am.

Michelle (simultaneous with my statement): Stop.

Michelle: Don’t be a turd. . . Go.

Me: . . .

Me (after 15 seconds): See, I told you I was smart.

So now I am left to wonder, is this change of apparent personality good, bad or neutral?

Categories
life

Up For Air

It’s been a very busy couple of days. I have been busy at our conference. Sunday we took a break and visited our families. I had the extra satisfaction of playing host to an old friend of ours and her kids (I hear is still she is still there tonight). Then it was back to the conference for more long days. It’s been fun and rewarding to talk to people and after the keynote speakers tonight I am more excited to get back to making use of the internet in sharing with others and (hopefully) making some difference in the world through my work.

Categories
life

Pre-Conference Denial

My company puts on a conference for e-learning developers every year. The pre-conference starts tomorrow and I am teaching the first pre-conference workshop. I have heard much talk around the company worrying about being prepared for the conference but I havenot had those cares. I have felt prepared to do my part to make the conference happen – until today.

Now, I am suddenly nervous for my classes and jittery at the thought of spending 7 of the next 8 days away from my family. This, despite the fact that I am going to be less than 50 miles from home and I will get to be home with the family on Sunday. I don’t know what to expect with regard to blogging during this conference which might be more disappointing because it has the potential to serve as a nervous outlet.

Wish me luck.

Categories
life technology

Help: I need PHP to actually work on IIS 6

I know this is a sidetrack from my normal topics, but I guess I’m testing the community out there. I have not been able to get reliable help on this problem even with Google.

I got PHP working on IIS 6 and then it magically stopped working. I got it working again (not sure what changed) and then it stopped working again as soon as the server got rebooted. Does anyone know how to make IIS play nice with PHP?

P.S. Let’s just pretend that I have no choice about IIS or PHP. It won’t help me to hear anyone suggest their favorite alternatives to either of them – if I could change the setup I would not bother with this combo.

Categories
life

The New Zone

Just before I started this job I posted some predictions of how it the new situation would affect the members of my family. After four months I think we have settled into a new comfort zone where the real effects can be seen. I said that Laura would have a hard time with the change since she was still adjusting to having four kids. She has done very well and has discovered that it is actually nicer for her to have me working outside the home because she is not tempted to ask for my help when she doesn’t really need it. I was right that Savannah and Alyssa would just roll with this change and of course that Isaac would not notice the difference.

I had predicted that Mariah would have the hardest time with it. I may have been right, but if so it was by unnoticable degrees. The whole thing was very easy on all of us. The fun fact of the matter is that Mariah seems to have made a game of saying goodbye to me every morning. It’s almost as much fun for her to say goodbye in the morning as it is to yell “Daddyyyy” when I get home. She says goodbye to me every time I put on a jacket or a pair of gloves. She seems very secure in a world where coming and going are okay. She is still very much a daddy’s girl but she is not afraid to let me go and do things because she trusts that I will come back. I really did not know if she would be old enough to make that adjustment so smoothly.

Categories
life politics

Yes, I’m Still Alive

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here and I am going to work harder to change that. Things have been very busy at home and at work lately. Right now I would like to give a few projections of what is happening and will be happening with me and the blog.

The candidates have been filing in and I have not kept up. Here is the current list of candidates and the order in which I will be making my endorsements (this is based on the order they filed to the best of my knowledge): John Edwards, Christopher Dodd, Sam Brownback, Christine Smith, Joe Biden, and Duncan Hunter.

I am personally taking a more active interest in local and state politics right now. I am actually going to meetings on current issues, such as the Mountain View Corridor highway that UDOT is looking to build. I believe that politics should be more local and less national so I am trying to make my own actions (and commentary) reflect that belief. I will be posting more on those issues, although I will still be covering national issues and races as well. The limit is that I will not cover races that I can’t vote in – so no coverage of a controversial race for governor in another state even if it is making headlines around the nation.

I have also felt the need to move from blogger again. It’s time to revive my personal site so I will be moving to WordPress again and have it hosted at davidjmiller.org. I already own the domain, but it has been dormant for a while. I’m not going to rush the move, I want to import my posts from blogger, but I may move forward without that.

I am actually considering the possibilities of participating with parties and/or candidates at some level and I may finally be ready to donate somewhere. That’s a huge change for me. While I love talking/writing on the subject I am ready to do more than just pontificate.

So, life is great right now despite my silence here. I am hoping to export the energy that I am finding from that to help make a difference in the things that I have always talked about.

Categories
life

My Life is So Good

I have been thinking a lot lately about how good my life is right now. I have a job I love, a family that keeps me both happy and busy (often happy and busy are the same thing), and the opportunity to do things that I enjoy – such as study politics, blog, train for a marathon, etc. Today was a holiday for some people, but I was not begrudging the fact that it was not a holiday for me because I enjoy my work. Other jobs that I have liked still left me wanting every holiday I could get.

In the last few days, Isaac has started sleeping through the night, so I get to sleep through the night as well. And today we took the family to the community center for breakfast to support the literacy center. That is the first thing we have done for the purpose of spending money to support something we believe in. It’s nice to finally be in a position financially where we feel that we can give more than time or verbal assent to an idea.

As I was talking to Laura recently about this, I realized that life really could not be any better. I even like the challenges that we face, and that we undoubtedly will face as we grow and as the kids advance to new stages – like becoming teenagers. My assessment was – our life could be different in various ways, but none of those differences would make it better than it is.