Jrwz.net - News (a.k.a. My Blog)
Here's the part of my site where I get to let you know what I've been up to,
what I'm currently about, and what I may be doing down the pike. If you
see something here and have questions or thoughts that you'd like to
communicate to me, you can use my
contact form, or
you can look up my contact info
here.
Note that if there is more than one entry for the same date, the time of
the entry will be included, and will be listed in 24-hour format (e.g.
14:00 = 2:00PM) in the U.S. Eastern Standard time zone.
=[ 06 February 2008 ]=
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, my wife has mandated that I not post
details about her and my son. So to comply with her order, I've censored the
previous posts and will be more careful with what I write from now on.
Consider it an active demonstration of my love for her, as I'm carrying out the request in spite of how totally bogus I think it is (as evinced by my use of
the
[CENSORED] labels)!
=[ 22 April 2007 ]=
We've sold the house in NY, and we're supposed to close on the new house on the
26th. So our new address will be 90 Portsmouth Island Drive, Garner, NC 27529.
Even though it's a Garner postal address, it's actually
[CENSORED -- If
you need directions, please contact me].
=[ 20 February 2007 ]=
Although we've only been house-hunting for a short time, it looks like we've
found one that is almost a perfect match for our wish-list. We're in the midst
of selling our old house in NY, and buying a new one here in NC, so we've been
pretty busy. It looks like 2007 is going to be another busy year, with another
move in the works. Fortunately, this one looks like it won't be quite so much
of a change, as we'll only be moving from Cary, NC to Garner NC (only about 20
miles away or so).
=[ 07 January 2006 ]=
The Year 2006 in Review
For me, 2006 was an extremely eventful and life-changing year. It started with
the death of my Dad on the 6th of
January, at 15:12. When I found out
he had died, I wrote a letter to him. Even though I knew he would never read
it, I needed an outlet for the thoughts and feelings that were overwhelming me.
My Dad had previously put my sister in charge of his final affairs, and she
scheduled his funeral exactly a week later. As he had been cremated, there was
no wake, viewing, calling hours, or whatever it's called these days. Rather,
it was a simple funeral service. At the front of the church, was an ornate
chest which contained his ashes, upon an unadorned table. Nearby was a montage
display of various photographs of him. My sister had asked me if I would say a
few words (in effect, a eulogy) at the service. I agreed, and through many
tears, publicly read
the letter
that I had written.
My Dad is the first person in my immediate family to have died, so it's not
been easy for me. An even year has gone by now since he's been gone, and it's
finally getting to where the pain is at a level I can stand without crying or
shutting out my emotions. I still miss him, especially when I'm up real late,
everyone else is asleep, and the neighbourhood is quiet. It's actually kind of
apropos, really. When he was still around, he'd call me during the day while I
was at work, and I couldn't spend much time talking with him. And I wouldn't
think to call him back at night until it was late, after he'd already gone to
sleep, so I'd be up thinking about him and wishing I could talk to him. Here I
am a year later, finding myself up thinking about him, still wishing I could
talk to him. But tomorrow I can't call him, nor the day after, nor ever. If
that sounds sad, it's because it is, still.
In
February,
[CENSORED].
In
May,
[CENSORED], I gave a two-week notice of
resignation at work, because we had decided that I would be in charge of the
logistics of moving.
June 5th was my last day of work. In the days that followed, I got us a
set of cell phones, segregated the services on my home network (separating the
web and mail services from all the rest), worked on all the small home repair
projects that had been building up, and began looking for a place for us to
live near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last item on the list almost turned out
to be a show-stopper, as I had a very difficult time finding one via the
telephone and the Internet. It wasn't until the middle of the next month that
we were actually able to sign a lease on a house.
In
July, I finally managed to make arrangements to "bury" my Dad's ashes
at the plot reserved for him in the cemetary next to the church in Richland,
New York, where his father, a minister, used to preach. To avoid all the extra
hassles involved with an actual burial, we decided to simply spread the ashes
over his grave. It was a warm, pleasant, summer evening. Later that month,
[CENSORED], we took a trip to Niagra Falls and Marineland. That
same weekend, my brother Bob became the proud father of a beautiful baby girl.
A week after that,
[CENSORED] and I drove to Cary, North Carolina
and spent our first night in our new home. And the last week of July was spent
loading a moving truck, driving it to our new home, and unloading it.
We didn't have enough room in one truck for everything we wanted to bring, so
the first week of
August was spent going back to New York, loading
another moving truck, driving it back to North Carolina, and unloading it. The
rest of August was spent getting driver's licenses and vehicle registrations
changed, setting up new bank accounts, and finding our way around our new home
town.
[CENSORED]. As well, Over the next few months (from
August through October), I made several trips back to New York, first to move
the last of our belongings into storage, then to work on getting the house
ready for sale, and finally to run several errands ancillary to our move.
September brought me the opportunity to attend my first meeting of the
local Linux User Group (
Trilug). At the
end of the month, my brother Don married his fiancée, Carrie, with me as
his best man. It was good to be with all my family together in one place
again, but the reunion was made bittersweet by the absence of my Dad.
The next month,
October, brought the end of all my trips back and forth
to New York. I was so fed up with all the endless travelling that I decided
that all other work needed on the house would thereafter be contracted out. It
was costing me too much time, energy and money driving back and forth. I still
hadn't begun looking for a job yet, and money was starting to get tight. My
second attendance of the Trilug meetings was this month, and also turned out to
be my very first presentation there! At the previous meeting, I had expressed
a willingness to give presentations, and it turned out that they had yet to
schedule someone for October, so they signed me up. This was also the month
that
[CENSORED], and I spent several weekends exploring our new
home state. The first trip was to the beach at Wilmington. We stayed
overnight so we could spend the next day on the battleship there that is now a
musuem, the U.S.S. North Carolina. The weekend after that, we made a day trip
to Pilot Mountain, which is near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. This trip turned
out to be a full frontal assault on my fear of heights. I didn't realise until
we were driving up the mountain what it would be like. This particular
mountain is quite unique in that there are no other mountains for miles around.
It's like being on the top of an extremely tall tower with nothing around.
Although it's very beautiful, because of my fear of heights, I came very close
to becoming a gibbering idiot.
The very next weekend, the first one in
November, we went to visit my
sister and her family in Greenville, South Carolina. While we were there, all
of us went to the town's
Falls Park. In
this park is a U-shaped, suspension footbridge called the Liberty Bridge.
Prior to the trip to Pilot Mountain, my fear of heights would have made it
impossible to walk across this kind of bridge--you can feel it bounce when
you're walking on it, and it's a good 30-50 feet above the ground. However, it
seemed almost easy after having lived the nightmare of the previous weekend's
experience (although I walked like an old man who'd crapped his pants as I
crossed it). To me, it was a milestone event to make it across that bridge
and back again too! A weekend later my mettle was tested yet again. My new
friend Alan, a new pilot, had invited me to fly with him in a two-seater
airplane. When I told him that I was willing to give it a try, but my fear of
heights could wind up being a show-stopper, he proposed a plan that would give
me an out if it didn't work out: We would take off, then immediately come back
around and land. If I then decided it was too much, I could get out and wait
out the rest of his flight on the ground at the hangar. I made it through the
first take-off and landing, and after a minute of some forced slow-breathing,
told him to take us up again. Although the entire trip lasted a couple of
hours, I managed to make it, albeit with very white knuckles. And I didn't cry
like a baby or scream like a girl! However, it wasn't until the very end of
the trip that I got up the nerve to look out my side window for more than a
mere glance. But it signified one more battle that I won in the fight to
conquer my fear of heights.
November also brought me two job interviews. The one for Red Hat was a
day-long affair, meeting with several different folks, but it didn't pan out.
The one for Opsware actually involved a face-to-face interview, and two
telephone interviews. This is the one that turned into an actual job offer.
It was exciting to talk with the folks there, and since starting I've met most
of the folks with whom I'll be working. Although it's too early to make
definitive pronouncements, I have to admit that it sure seems like a good fit
for me, and so far I seem to be getting along well with everyone there. We'll
have to see if I still feel so rosy about it after the "honeymoon" is over.
December's Christmas-time brought yet another trip, again by the whole
family.
[CENSORED] was overjoyed to discover that we were going
to Disney World. The game plan was to spend a day travelling to Florida, a day
at Disney's Magic Kingdom, a day at the Epcot Center, a day at
[CENSORED]'s cousin's house, and a day travelling back home. It
was fun to watch my son bouncing in his britches as we waited at the Disney
monorail station, he was so excited to get inside. And at the end of both days
at Disney, even though he was rubbing his eyes to stay awake, he didn't want to
leave: the first night we stayed until the place closed at midnight, and the
second night we didn't leave until 11:30. And although he didn't want to go to
[CENSORED]'s cousin's house on the last day, he ended up playing
with his cousins there (one is his age, the other is a year older) until two in
the morning. And although we hadn't seen them for some thirteen years or so
(before all our kids were born), it was as if we hadn't missed a beat. As the
cliche goes, "A good time was had by all". And on that note I'll now end my
review of the year!
=[ 07 December 2006 ]=
I'm no longer in the ranks of the unemployed!! This grand experiment called
life has me starting off on another adventure, this time with the good
folks at
Opsware. Although I've
enjoyed my "summer of free agency", I'm looking forward to my first day of
work on the 11th of December. It'll be good to get back on a more regular
schedule. My wife and son are starting to get fed up with my "hacker's
hours" :). Additionally, we think we may have found a local church to call
home:
Hope Chapel. We've only been to
a small handful of services, but all of us seem to be pleased with things
there so far. My friend Scott (who from past experience is rightfully wary
of churches) came to visit during the Thanksgiving holidays, and attended a
Sunday service with us, and even he seemed positive about it. I've yet to
sit down for a good long talk with the Pastor, but so far it's looking like
a "keeper".
=[ 02 November 2006 ]=
Having recently moved to North Carolina, I'm meeting many new folks. One
of them I met at the local Linux user group, a fellow by the name of Alan
Porter. A few days ago we were talking about job-hunting. He commented that
he was surprised that my web site had no contact info whatsoever, and that he
uses
his as a sort of "personal marketing
tool".
Shamed into action, I completely re-worked my web site. It used to be a very
simple and unadorned text site, a hodge-podge of stuff with no real order.
Now, it has a professional look, the chaos has been vanquished, and my
contact info and résumé are online. A public thanks to you,
Alan, for inspiring the changes herein!