John and Derek’s Blog

Greetings from a nice winter evening in Des Moines, IA…

Tonight I went downtown for the “End of the Season” ice skating party.  Was fun to skate one last time with the “ice skating buddies” I took lessons with.  They have the adults participate and do some silly dances and games with the kids.  Did the chicken dance, hokey pokey, limbo and YMCA.  Had great weather for it – was right at freezing with no wind.  The was a bit soft when I arrived at 6:30pm, but it kept improving and was decent by the time I left at 8:00pm.  Was a bit sad to say goodbye to my skating friends for another  year.  The skating plaza will remain open until the weather gets too warm.

Lots of people at the party

My instructor, Jennifer, helping a little skater..

Lessons at the indoor skating rink in Urbandale, IA were cancelled on Sunday because of a mechanical failure caused the ice to melt.  They plan to reschedule… Was looking forward to my first “Adult Level 3″ skating lesson, but will have to wait until next Sunday.

Tonight we are expecting a few inches of snow.  No big deal but we already have about a foot on the ground now.  We have had a few good melting days the past few days that has reduced the snow down from around a foot and a half.  I will probably need to go out and shovel in the morning.  I’m sick of snow… sigh…..

Putting the garbage cans out in the snow sucks....

Having the ham radio at my desk is nice during the day.  Is a bit lonely working at home by myself, so can listening to other hams chatting away from around the country.  Is an interesting “slice of life” hearing what they all talk about – radios, trucks, dogs, weather, old age, guns, pets and on and on  Without the antenna turner it seems like I can receive 40 meters the best.  I don’t dare attempt to transmit without the tuner in place.  Looking forward to participating in a few casual ham radio nets.

Last weekend purchased a wood folding table and matching chair from Target.  Set it up in between the kitchen and living room under the antique radio display.  Want to use it as a “special project” table. My first project was to put together a puzzle I received from my Mom for Christmas.  Had it together by Sunday evening – was 500 pieces but went quickly:

Project table in place

Puzzle All Done

Not much else going on… going to watch TV for a bit and head to bed at 10:00pm.  My legs are a bit sore from skating for 90 minutes tonight…. John needs to give me a nice massage….  as if…

Wow, it’s March already…

I guess we need to get better at keeping up with this blog…  Kinda been slackers lately eh?  Sorry.

Weather here has sorta sucked.  Certainly not the light winter we had last year.  Not a WI winter by a long shot, but still not pleasant.  Probally the worst winter we have had since Bloomington, IL, or New York City…  Anyhow, what was supposed to be just an inch last Sunday turned into snow most of the week and now about 5 inches left on the ground.  Today was a good melting day though, and the roof was mostly clear, so I decided to be brave and do some antenna work.

Derek has been wanting his own radio station for a while now, and last weekend we went to the “big” ham fest in Perry IA.  Well, it was 1 room, and one of those 20 minute radio swaps, but we did find a clean Yaesu FT-757.  Yes, just like one of the first HF rigs I bought in the RV.

The Radio is setup on Derek’s desk, along with a power supply on loan from Marcus.  Derek will be restoring a Butternut HF 6v that was also donated by Marcus and residing in the shed since last summer…  We still have a few more pieces to acquire to get him on the air.  One being a tuner/matcher for the antenna, which I purchased today, and should be here next week, as well as some coax, and miscellaneous parts.

The Antenna work today was for a VHF/UHF base antenna I bought off ebay a while back.  I have been itching to replace my “Mobile” solution that was mounted next to the Diamond BB6V.  Last year the diamond took a pretty good beating in a storm, and was pretty beat up, but was still working.  I suspected that installing the new VHF/UHF base would have some pretty negative effects on both antennas and I was correct, so I took the diamond down, and strung out my old End Fed wire.  So far I am pretty impressed with the new arrangement.  I have the End fed wire running from the top of the tripod to the peak of the shed roof.  It is almost invisible and it does handstands compared to the compromise Diamond.  I can tune it 6-60, and a small sliver on 80 with my 897 and AT897 tuner.  Once we get the tuner for Derek’s rig, I’ll put a switch in line and he will be able to use that one until we get the HF6 on the roof.  The VHF/UHF antenna is also pretty amazing.  Not sure I buy the claim of 11db gain, but I can tell you it is a far cry better than the mobile antenna I sole from the camper.  Now I can get all 6 NOAA channels!

Last weekend Derek’s Parents were in town.  They did some touristy stuff with Derek, and we had a few meals with them, once at the casino buffet for breakfast (it was “ok”) and we went downtown to bugger I forget the name of it–  Down on Court Ave where we ate before Book of Mormon…  That was pretty good.  Derek took them to the The capitol, the history museum, botanical garden and “goodwill” (don’t ask– they have some fascination with Goodwill). I think they had a nice visit.

To start the weekend off, Derek wanted to go out to ARL and pet pussies.  He made us breakfast and we made it there by 9:45.  We visited with most of the cats before the doors opened, and then the people showed up.  I was able to adopt out my first cats today, a pair of “Bonded Buddies” named Dave and Moe.  Sweet cats, and the guy who adopted them was very inquisitive, and will give them a great home.  I ha to get help from one of the other volunteers because he was asking so many questions I had no idea how to answer.  We got done there by Noon, and stopped into US Pawn, mostly because we saw the owner at the Ham Fest last weekend, and he had “Amateur Radio Ops Welcome” on his marquee.  Figured it would be a good place to look for a tuner.  We went in and I asked him what he had in stock, which wasn’t much beyond some standard connectors and such…  But we chatted for a minute and I bought a few PL259′s (he had the good ones).  After that we made it home and I spent most of the afternoon on the roof…

Ok, that brings you up to speed.  Maybe I’ll get a picture of the new antenna tomorrow…

John

It snowed.

Received around 6" of the white stuff

"Logan the Snow Guy" scraped out the parking lot at 6:15am

Wednesday evening I went to see “Queens on Ice” at Brenton Plaza.  It was a benefit for Capital City Pride – the organization that puts on the local Pride Fest.  The show comprised mainly of drag queens  and several local semi-professional figure skaters.  A few of the drag queens could skate, but most did not attempt.  Give them credit for performing outside in the frigid air – was in the lower 20′s out with a wicked breeze.  Here’s a few pics:

Drag queen ice skating. Did a nice job.

This "girl" needs a cookie - so thin...

The city lights made a nice backdrop for the evening.

I have the day off of work – taking it as a “comp day” since I worked on Monday (President’s Day bank holiday).  The city inspectors will be back at 10:00am to inspect the items we corrected – new railing on the back stairs, new dual-sensor hard wired smoke alarms and other minor things.  We spent around $800.00 getting everything done.  We should pass inspection with flying colors and receive our rental certificate.  The certificate is good for two years then.

Greetings from a nice winter evening in Iowa…

We’ve had a nice weekend with no snow or rain and temps getting into the upper 40′s.  Starting to see bicyclists on the trail across the street.  I’m tempted to get my bike out but don’t like having the cold air against my face as I pedal.

On Saturday morning I went to dog training at the Animal Rescue League.  The training took two hours, but was interesting and it went quickly.  We started out learning about basic procedures at the shelter, then got into how “clicker training” works.  We each received a free clicker and then we did an exercise we took turns pretending to be a dog and learning what to do based on someone using the clicker to guide us.  Main gist is to click the clicker and give a treat to the dog when it does something good.  It helps to provide consistent training when many people work with each animal.

Next we learned how to identify when an animal is not happy and could potentially bite you.  Lots of little body language queues too look for.  Main idea is to review to whole animal (not concentrate on just it’s face) to determine it’s current mood.  Final step was to learn how to enter the dog’s kennel space, and put a collar with leash on it.  I had a large dog named “General” who was pretty easy to work with – was able to get the collar on and adjusted with little problem.

After class was done, I checked in as a cat volunteer and spent three hours in the cat area. They like us to pet and play with the cats – then write something cute about the cat on the window outside their cage.  Like – “I love to play” – “Lovable lap kitty” and etc.  I played with at least a dozen cats – my favorite was a 13 year old kitty named “Maverick”:

Maverick the cat - waiting to be adopted.

Maverick is still listed on their website – so probably not adopted yet.  Spent time getting cats out of their cages and moved to “Hug Rooms” to interact with potential adoptees.  Most of the cats were cooperative, but ran into one that was sleeping and did not want to be disturbed. Gave it a few treats and then it liked me enough for me to wisk it away to the room.

I helped a nice family adopt a 4 month old kitten named Joy.  Then I ended up in the dog section (other volunteers were not dog trained) to help an elderly couple adopt a little dog.  They were very cute and the dog was a perfect match for them.

Would like to go to “rabbit and guinea pig” training in the near future.  The small animals are located next to the cat section and several times I needed to locate someone who was trained to take them to a hug room.

This morning I did some laundry and John was looking bored – so asked if wanted to go out and do something.  I suggested checking out the antique malls – which he balked at.  I then said I wanted to drive to Newton, IA because I’ve not been there before.  He was game so off we went.

Took us a half hour to get there taking 80 East.  We basically drove around, looked at houses and businesses.  Not much happening in Newton at 10:30am on a Sunday morning.  Most everything was not open yet.  We did drive past where the Maytag corporation was located at.  It’s a nice campus with well maintained, but mostly empty, office buildings.  The last appliances were made there October 25, 2007.  Then the jobs and machinery was moved to Benton Harbor, MI where it merged with Whirlpool’s operation to save money.

We then drove around the countryside and eventually on some gravel roads through farm country.  Was not a particularly pretty time of the year to for the drive, but was still interesting to check things out.

On our way back into town we wanted to stop at Jethro’s BBQ in Altoona, IA (not far from Adventureland Park) for lunch.  I messed up the GPS and we ended up at their new location in Ankeny, IA.  It had opened up in December and the landscaping was not in yet.  Their menu had more seafood and cajun dishes then the one we went to by Drake University.  I had pulled pork, with creamed jalapeño corn and mac ‘n cheese.  It was too much food, but it tasted good.  John had a Bayou Burger – an Angus patty topped with a shrimp patty.  He said it was good…

Had my last ice skating lesson for this 7 week long session.  We were tested on our skills to see if we can go on to the next level or not.  I graduated to level 3.  Yeah!! Finally…. The instructor said my cross-overs could still use some refinement, but overall I’m set for new challenges.  Adult 3 will probably take me a few years to get through – they have us learn:

• Backward edges on a circle, outside and inside, clockwise and counterclockwise
• Backward crossovers, clockwise and counterclockwise
• Inside Mohawk, either direction
• Basic forward outside and forward inside consecutive edges
• Forward progressives
• Beginning two-foot spin
• Backward snowplow stops

After skating I went to JT’s Slap Shot to get my figure skates sharpened.  The one blade had uneven edges that I wanted to get corrected.  They do a good job and only charge $5.00. Will see how they feel during my lesson tomorrow night.

Not much else going on… time to watch TV for a bit and prepare for the work week.  Should be an easy week – I work on Monday (President’s Day) when most of my coworkers do not.  I’m then taking the floating holiday off on Friday.

Happy Valentines Day!

John's card waiting for his arrival

John and I exchanged cards today.  Was funny that he purchased a heart shaped valentine cake and I had a cake baking in the oven when he arrived home from work tonight.  Oh well – you can never have enough cake in the house

Today we had KC Handyman make the improvements to the back stairs the city inspectors asked for.  John was at work, so it was up to me to deal with them.  Was pretty easy – went over what we wanted when they arrived, then inspected the job and wrote them a check when done.  It took them six and a half hours to complete the job.  Lots of little fussy details to deal with is my opinion.

Once the weather get warm enough will paint the new parts to match.  Online it says the temps need to be in the 50′s for a few days for latex paint to adhere properly.  Today it got into the upper 40′s, but is going to snow overnight and only be in the 20′s for the next few days.

New raisers, railings and lattice

Side view..

I’m not a bit fan of lattice, in general, but “It’s Just Fine”.  Thinking it will help keep leaves and debris out of the stairwell.  Hope the city inspectors like it.  It will be nice to have a railing on the stairs going down.  Now if we can just get siding and windows done.  Waiting to see how our taxes come out before we move forward with those projects.

Speaking of taxes, we meet with our tax lady at her office last night.  We drop off our folders of receipts and assorted tax crap.  I only worked in one state last year – something new.  Some refund money would be nice, but John suspects we will just break even.  Afterwards we dined out at the Rock Bottom Brewery.  I had their “Double IPA” – and it went straight to my head.  Glad John drove home, and that I did not wake up with a sore toe (gout).

John’s job is going well and he seems to enjoy it.  I’m not allowed to say anything else about it.

On Saturday morning I have a two and a half hour dog training session at the Animal Rescue League.  Will be good to have it out of the way.  Many of their volunteer opportunities specify you need to have both cat and dog training.  After the dog training I will probably stick around for a bit and pet/play/brush some of the lonely kitties.

John will be working on installing the replacement hard wired fire alarms in the apartments.  He did ours last week and said it was pretty easy – just loosen up some wire nuts, remove old detector and install new one.  The new models have both ionization and photo-electric sensors.  Then we will be ready for the city to re-inspect the place.  Big bad John says he wants to be present for that inspection.  :)

My ice skating lessons continue.  Last Monday it was quite windy and cold at the downtown rink for my lessons.  Was glad to be done after skating against the stiff breeze for an hour.  Purchased and installed a pair of yellow Happy Feet inserts for my figure skates to help with my arches getting sore.  They are making a big difference – my feet don’t hurt nearly as much.  This Sunday will have testing to see if I can advance to Adult 3, or if I stay in Adult 2. Not sure how it will go….  Believe I’m ready for Adult 3, but the instructor may think different…. Wanted to go skating downtown tonight, but being Valentines Day, it would be too busy for me to have room to practice.

Not much else going on.  Plan on playing Fallen Earth for awhile and have a piece of cake before heading to bed….  In Fallen Earth I’ve become a clothing designer – selling shirts, shoes and accessories for top dollar… it may be the apocalypse, but you still can be stylish…

Greetings from a cold evening in Iowa…

The weather continues to be very wintery.  Been having days where the outside temperatures stay in the single digits.  Burrr….

On Friday morning we had the city come and do the apartment inspection.  They found a few small things that we need to correct.  Need to replace some of the hard wired smoke detectors with newer dual sensor models, and do some upgrades to the back exterior stairs.  The stairs need some additional railings and enclosures.  They want them to be safer for small children…  There is a small handyman place down the street that we will contact and see if they will deal with the stairs.  The smoke detectors are easy – have ordered them on Amazon and should be easy to install when they arrive next week.

We had a busy morning today with cat training at ARL and my ice skating.  First made it to the Brenton Plaza (outside ice skating rink) at 8:15 am for a final practice session before the show later in the morning.  John dropped me off and then he ran to pick up his dry cleaning and stop at the bank.  I got into my skates and we went through our routine a few times.  It went well – just fine tuned some of the timing of it.

After practice was done at 9:00am John was waiting for me in the Jeep and then we headed to the Animal Rescue League (ARL) for cat training class.  They require the volunteers to go through the training before they are allowed to work with in the feline area.  The training was about where things are located in the building, how to sign-in and out, procedures for handling the kitties and etc.  The lady who conducted the training did a nice job of keeping it moving right along and interesting.  The ARL has a nice facility and the animals appear to well taken care of.  The adoption cat area is not huge, they probably have two dozen cat cages along with two group rooms.  The training was done in 70 minutes, just in time to head back downtown for the show.

We were originally going to be the last group to perform, but we got bumped up to being the third.  The first two were girls who were very good.  We were the first of the “Learn to Skate” groups.  Here is an iPhone video that John took of the debut performance:

Best part of the performance is that I did not fall down…. Lots of room for improvement, but was still fun…  We then stayed and watched the other groups perform.  A group of grade school kids did a routine to the Adams Family theme song that was cute.  Then the youngest kids did a routine to Hakuna Matata from the Lion King… now I have that song stuck in my mind….

After ice skating we headed towards home and decided to dine out for lunch.  We ended up at the King and I Thai restaurant.  John dined here a few weeks ago with coworkers and enjoyed it.  This was my first time and it was really good.  I had a red curry dish with chicken.  I like my Thai food to be spicy but not over the top and they did a nice job with that.  Only drawback is that it was a little expensive, but would like to go back again.

Prince was a little stand-offish with us when we got home.  Think he could still smell cats from the ARL on our clothes.  He came around after 15 minutes of meowing his disgust with us  This afternoon we hung around the apartment, watched TV and did stuff on the computer.  Had a simple supper of soup and sandwich.

Tomorrow we are going to see The Book of Mormon at the Des Moines Performing Arts Center downtown.  The show starts at 1:00pm, so will probably head downtown at 11:00am and have lunch then walk over to the show.  There are lots of restaurants along Court avenue that are within easy walking distance.  Then after the show I have ice skating lessons at the indoor rink in Urbandale at 5:05pm.  John may have to drive me directly to the rink after the show – its running time is 2 hours, and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.  John is not thrilled with having to sit through even more ice skating this weekend, but he will get over it

Not much else going on…  Going to play computer game for a bit and then head off to bed.  I got really tired of playing World of Warcraft, so picked out a new online game to play.  It is called Fallen Earth and it is post apocalyptic adventure game. It a bit like Warcraft in that you go on quests and kill monsters to raise up in levels.  I like how you gather up materials that you can craft into usable items.  Like I get cotton from cotton plants along with some weak adhesive from another plant and combine them to make clothing and etc. The game is also “Free to Play”, but you can spend real money on some upgrades and expansion for the game.  So far I’ve spent $5.00 on it – less then the $14.95 a month that Warcraft costs to play….

Greetings from a frigid West Des Moines, IA..

The weather has been crazy.  On Saturday the temps were in the 50′s, but only got into the low 20′s on Sunday.  I spent most of the weekend not feeling well.  Still getting over the cold/flu… just really tired, bit of a sore throat and cough.  Saturday and Sunday morning I slept in until 9:00am – partly due to taking some Nyquil before heading to bed.

Spent majority of the weekend on the sofa being a zombie watching TV.  Have started watching home improvement shows in HGTV again.  My HGTV watching comes in sputs – will watch for a few months, get bored and not watch for a few months… I watched way too many episodes of Color Splash with David Bromstad…  way too many.  My favorite HGTV show right now is Rehab Addict with Nicole Curtis.  I like how she rejuvenates homes from the early 1900′s in the Minneapolis area.  Each episode centers around a single room or area of the house – so she goes into enough depth that you actually learn something about the process.  She is not wealthy and keeps things real about how she is does the financing and deals with things not working out as planned. Good show….

Just got back from ice skating lessons outside at Brenton Plaza where I froze my butt off…. It is 7 out with a wind chill of -5 – I must be stupid or dedicated to go through with the lessons….  Probably a bit of both…  The coach has us working on a routine for a show they are putting on in two weeks.  I’m not too keen on the show thing, but did not want to say no….  So, practicing doing Chasses with a partner.  Left, up, left – hold.  Left, up left – hold and so on… The difficult part is knowing where we should be going around the rink…  The coach drew us a picture afterwards – not sure it is helping much:

Routine diagram...

One of the good parts of being in the show is that I get two more lessons for free…. Not too worried about the show – the only people who will show up are parents of the younger children… they have all seen me fall on my bum before

Last Wednesday went for a vision exam at Pearl Optical in the Valley West Mall.  Then picked out a pair of regular glasses and a pair of Oakley sunglasses.  Have vision insurance and it covered the cost of the eye exam and resulted in savings of $237 on the regular glasses and $146 off the second pair.  It seemed pretty reasonable.  The sunglasses are the wrap around type that will be nice for when I ride my bike or go on long RV trips in the summer.  It seems like such a splurge to obtain prescription sunglasses, but I will really appreciate having them….

Not much else going on.  Going to watch TV a bit before heading off to bed….  Have an episode of Hotel Impossible recorded on the DVR to catch up on.

Hello all, John here.

Oh what an interesting week, and mostly things I can’t talk about here in the blog-o-sphere…  Which really sort of bites because this is a great way to vent.  Sigh.  So, to be as cryptic as I can be, I am going through another life event, it is non-threatening to either of our health, and I believe is the best “move” for all involved.  Yes, we are staying in West Des Moines.  About all I otherwise want to say is that the crazy-town train has left!  If anyone else desires more info and you are in the circle, please feel free to call or email…

Other than that, Not a whole lot going on.  Derek seems to be healthy again, and isn’t complaining about his job too much, but he is on-call next week which I am sure will make him all bright and happy.  I have been studying for the CCNA, but it is slow going.  One of my professors from DeVry graciously granted my access to the actual Cisco material, which is a Huge Help, and a huge value.  It’s slow going, but I am making progress.  I am hoping by studying 2 hours a night I can be ready for the big test in 3 months.

This weekend is the Big Quartzsite Rally in AZ.  I really wish we could be on the road to join them, as it would be a great time to get away, but that simply isn’t possible.  Maybe next year when we both have some vacation time.  We wish all those in the desert fun times!

So, that is really all I have…  Trust me, I could write 6 pages just from what has gone down in the last 72 hours, but the blogger’s curse strikes again.

Have a good night.

John

Greetings from a chilly West Des Moines, Iowa…

This past week we had highs in the 40′s, so most of the snow melted.  This weekend the brisk cold air returned and it has not been much above freezing.

We both have been battling colds/flu this past week.  It hit me the hardest and I ended up calling in sick on Monday morning and spending the day in bed.  It really made me feel miserable and very tired.  I made it through the remainder of the work week, but was really dragging ass.  If I was not working from home I would have probably taken additional sick days.  Sitting in front of the computer in sweat pants, taking vitamin-C tablets like candy and downing tons of herbal tea help me through it.  I was still dragging ass all week….  Tired all day, and not sleeping well at night is not a fun combination.

It also did not help that I ended up having to deal with a project gone bad at work.  It tested out fine on the test servers, but did not work properly in production.  It was a real shit-storm to get it corrected because I had to work with two different administration teams to fix – lots of “delegate and wait”.. and I felt like crap… not a fun combination.  Think it is all corrected now…  Hoping I don’t walk into any related messes on Monday…..

The large project I worked most of last year on has been cancelled.  It was a large amount of functionality being added to 14 year old application.  The application was a mess to begin with, and this new project was not working well as we got into development.  It was proving to be very slow and erratic to use.  I put up some red-flags about it in October and development was put on hold then.  The entire application is being re-done using a different platform and the amount of time remaining just did not seem worth it.

It is a mixed blessing to have it finally cancelled.  I can put my talents to work on something “bigger and better”, but almost a years worth of my development time has been wasted.  Worked lots of extra hours and weekends on it…

My annual review with my manger is coming up in the next few weeks.  Review is used to determine any pay increase and bonuses paid out.  Will be interesting to see how this goes with the cancelled project and all…

We had a somewhat busy weekend.  On Saturday morning we went to the Animal Rescue League (ARL) on the south side of Des Moines to attend their volunteer orientation.  We thought it would be something fun to do – be able to go and play with cats that are up for adoption – to help them be more social around people.  The meeting lasted 90 minutes and was attended by around 200 people.  At the end of the meeting everyone lined up to pay $20 to receive a handbook and a required volunteer t-shirt.  We only paid $30.00 because we live at the same address.  The session provided a nice overview of the organization and the additional training sessions we need to attend before actually working with animal.

The ARL has a small location in West Des Moines that would work out well for us to volunteer, but we will need to attend three more training sessions – cat handling, dog handling and site orientation.  The training seems excessive, but guess it helps to weed out people who would not be good volunteers?  After training we will need to volunteer at least two hours a month to keep our volunteer standing.  If it lapses, then we have to re-take the training…  This coming Tuesday they will release the schedule of classes that we can sign up for.  May be a fun way for us to meet new people here in Iowa and get to play with cats…

After the ARL training I had John drive around to get some necessary shopping done.  Bed Bath and Beyond and Petsmart are located next to each other in Urbandale, IA so stopped there first.  Got some cleaning fluid for the Braun electric razor at first place, then crystal cat litter and cat food at the second.  None of the grocery stores carry crystal cat litter – so stuck having to run to the Petsmart for it…

Next stop was to the UPS Store to send my hockey skates to brother Deven in Illinois.  I attempted to use them the prior weekend and they feel too different from my figure skates now.  He will get more use out of them skating with Jet…

By this time John was done with driving me around town so we headed home and I fixed some lunch.  Then Saturday evening John wanted to dine out, so we headed to the Macaroni Grill because we had a gift card for them.  There was a 45 minute wait to be seated, so we walked over to the adjacent Rock Bottom Brewery.  The brewery only had a 20 minute wait so we stayed.  The wait felt more like 30 minutes, but no big deal…

The last time we went to a Rock Bottom Brewery was in downtown Portland, OR- on 8/28/11 to be exact.  I remembered they had really good cajun fish tacos , so ordered them again.  They did not disappoint – were delish served with nicely seasoned black beans and rice. The black beans had a surprising amount of a spicy zing to them.  John had lobster tacos and enjoyed them with a spiced wheat beer. It was one of the better meals we have had at a restaurant here in the Des Moines area.  I ended up driving home

This morning I ended up sleeping in until 8:30am.  Got up and made breakfast for us – sausage, eggs and hash browns.  Then headed to the Valley West Mall to get my hair cut.  They were not very busy so got assigned a stylist right away.  Half way through my cut, the stylist next to where I was sitting started to freak out.  Another client had “bugs” in his hair – assume it was lice.  Icky, icky, ICKY!  Made me want to start itching my own scalp…

Then went to Kohl’s to returns a few items John purchased online but did not like.  Was no problem.  Then managed to find two nice knit sweaters that were 75% off to purchase. Used a gift card I received for Christmas from my Mom to pay for them.  Came to $35.00 – not a bad deal.

This afternoon we went to The Saddle to meet up with Don and Troy at an HIV/AID’s benefit event.  They were having a silent auction and drag show.  We only stayed for 90 minutes because of my ice skating lessons.  John went to the indoor Metro Ice rink with me because he wanted to take pictures with his new camera.  He sat up in the bleachers with the other “ice moms/dads” – was kinda funny.  While my lessons are going on, there is four other groups of lessons going on – mostly pre-school to second grade aged kids….

My lesson went well.  Still need to work on going backwards on one foot – just not getting the balance right.  As a result I don’t stay on one foot for very long.  Need to get good enough so I can go three lengths of my body on one foot to graduate to the next level….  Have lessons tomorrow night downtown at the Brenton Plaza – so will practice more then.  Yes – I’m taking lessons at two different venues…  I like getting out and getting some exercise…

Not much else going on… going to relax a bit, read, watch TV before heading to bed at 10:00pm.  Looking forward to having a better week at work…

Hello all, John here…

Sorry we haven’t written a while again…  Things pretty quiet here.

We have had about normal weather for what you would expect in IA for January.  Maybe a little nicer since the last storm.  It’s been cold, but not unbearable, and this weekend was actually quite nice, yesterday in the upper 30′s and today mid 30′s.

Finally getting back to some bare pavement in the parking lot!

Work last week as a little hectic, as it being a short week, and I was given a huge project for the GSA.  It has been a pretty big learning experience, since I have never had to deal with a government project like this before.  Not only am I not familiar with the technology, but there is a butt load of government regulations that need to be followed, and to make sure the system is compliant with.  Pretty crazy…  I understand why many of these types of installations “look” pricier on the surface, a lot of it has to do with all the red tape to service the customer.

I have made a decision on what track/path my future holds.  I really want to explore a more technical side of IT than pure project management, and have decided to start to study for my CCNA, which is an entry level Cisco certification which tends to hold some weight in the IT world.   What really spurred this was that networking class I had a few months back.  While I bitched most of the time going through the class, it was one of those classes I really enjoyed a lot.  In no small part because of the professor I had in the class.  He was very committed, and took a strong interest in seeing us succeed.  I reached out to him this weekend, and he (even after I have graduated) has offered a ton of advice, and has given me access to some first rate material to study and put a plan together.  So In any case I have some work cut out, but it is something I do enjoy doing.

Also wanted to say thanks to all those who wished me happy birthday.  My last year in my 30′s.  Ugh.  It was a nice day sans the having to work part, but they even did make a big deal out of it with the owner throwing a “celebration” and a cake and all.  On the home front, Derek made me a cake too, and gave me tickets to book of Mormon.  We talked about going and now I get to!  He is so nice!    It is at the DSM Preforming Arts Center, which we haven’t been too yet, so that will be a real treat.  For Tuesday’s Dinner, we met Don and Troy at the casino and had a really nice meal at AJ’s Steakhouse.  It was good to see them.

I did put the Printer Money into a DSLR.  I have wonted a good camera for a while now, and this one should last.  Ended up with a Nikon D3200.  Derek is picking on my because now I am accessorizing it…  With that said, here is a picture of Prince…

Ok, that’s all for now…  Have a good night.

John