Photos!

Here is the new car.. Don't you see it?? Larger tires, Yakima roof rack and light kit... Bull bars on the front with safari lights... I mean really!



This was my only casualty after the hike with Paul, luckily.


Check this out! This is Gummi Cake of Awesomeness that my wonderful wife put together for my birthday! No crummy cake filler, pure gummi goodness - a gummi snake - YES, SNAKE! - , then worms, THEN DINSOSAURS! then bears and Super Cherri Bears on top! MMMMMMM...

The Catch Up 3.23.09

So I am three weeks into the new job and whew - talk about a lot to learn fast. Just earlier we were going over...
Wait, what? You didn't know that I finally escaped the desktop support dungeon after only 10 years? Yes sir, I'm out.
And no, not as a world touring photographer.. dull it down a bit.
When Wells Fargo and Wachovia announced their merger I put my resume out on several different IT sites just seeing what I could see. In January I was contacted for a position that seemed to be the next logical step from desktop support - Server Hardware Engineer. I tossed my hat in the ring so to speak and geared up for the first interview only to find that a coworker had also been contacted and also had applied for the position. We both interviewed twice and were told at the final interview that they were looking for two people and that there were three of us as candidates.
The cool thing was that we knew one of us was leaving.
Friday Febuary 20th we both got the phone call asking us when could we start. WHOOHOO!
So after 10 years of working together Greg (aka Puerto Rican Gary - Gum Czar of the East Coast), and I are still working together but with Duke Energy. I'm really digging it, though I was just given my pager today and I'm pretty sure I won't be liking that thing too much in the middle of the night, but hey - it is what it is.

Also in the news, we've bought a new car. Like, not just new to us, but NEW. The van was getting to the point of needing work so instead of dumping money into something questionable, we are dumping money into a 2008 Kia Sportage. And it's COOL. The payments aren't too cool (compared to not having any for the past however long) but it's nice knowing that I have a long and healthy warranty. Now if I can just keep from adding a roof rack with a light kit... oh, and black bull bars on the front... ohhhh...

What else is going on...

Stace is in training for the Seattle Marathon in June (and maybe will fit a half in before then) and that seems to be going pretty well. Her health is good and hopefully will stay that way. She ran 9 miles on Saturday! Go baby!

Speaking of mileage, Paul and I did 31 miles of the AT through the Smokys at the end of Feb.! Boy, I gotta tell you, that sucked. I mean I'm glad I did (read: survived) it, but that was tough for me. We did 15 miles on Saturday and 16 on Sunday. That's bad enough, but basically everything that could have been against us really was.
It was misting Sat morning that turned to rain almost all the rest of the day.
The trail, where it wasn't completely frozen over and impassable, was literally a creek through most of the area.
Due to the ice and just my general lack of fitness it was well after dark when we reached our shelter, 10 hours later.
Sunday morning was dry at first, then it started to dust and then dust turned to raging snow. We started at 8 and it was 4:30 when I came out of the woods, some 30 mins or so after Paul, the beast he is.
I didn't take my camera with me as I knew I was going to be in enough trouble without the weight. We did get a few shots with a little point and shoot Paul had with him. I'll post those later. Getting back to Charlotte was a hoot as well, and took me almost 20 hours to do so due to the weather. But all in all I'm glad it happened. It was a good experience and another chapter to my story. I do wish I could have gotten a photo of Paul with ice hanging from the eyebrow and beard on one side of his face... Good times.

Porter and Oscar are good. Porter hasn't really grown any that I can tell... it's getting to be about that time though when it's just too warm for all that bear hair. He'll have to go back to being the ganky shaved puppy soon.

Anything else?

I passed the Comptia Server+ Certification Exam on Friday... We have grown up bed sets in the house now... I think that's most of it. Photo wise I have not done anything lately, to be honest. It seems my creative center has a short in it and I'm not sure how to reset the fuse. I do feel a little better towards the whole thing as I am catching myself thinking "oh, that would be a good shot" as opposed to not having any type thought like that at all. I'll keep you posted.

Be well.