Juval Lowy blog article I came across

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2009/04/07/juval-lowy-s-master-architect-class.aspx

Opened up comments

I've changed the permissions to allow comments.  Sorry about that folk. (thanks for the heads up Brian)

Should I write a book?

Thinking about writing a book detailing all of the funny and crappy events that have happened to me over the past decade or so. Excerpt from the TOC (more to come as I flush it out):

1. Lessons Learned:  Don't hike an advanced trail in the Grand Canyon with noobs.
2. Buying a house? Don't buy from Ma and Pa Kettle.
3. Planning and executing a wedding by yourselves on a $6000 budget. Fugedaboutit!
1. Where's the booze? Crap, she forgodaboutus!
4. Never pitch your tent in a wash...it actually DOES rain in Arizona
1. Where's our breakfast???  Denny's lost our ticket in the gravy, but didn't realize it for 2 hours.
5. The Shasta experience: A fools tale on remodeling a pool
6. Re-roofing your own house. 101 mistakes to avoid.
7. Camping with 12k lb GVW rig and 5 days of solid rain
• The broken(?) awning
• Stuck in the mud - the Quad event
• Stuck in the mud - the Truck event
• Rescued by the damsel
8. Emergency Iowa Trip - 2010
• The trip up
• i. Brights, we don’t need no stinking brights…
• ii. Sleeping in 97 degree humid weather cause I'm too cheap to run the generator
• iii. Colfax under water
• While there
• i. Dad in the hospital
• ii. Funny things Stephen says
• iii. Staining while its raining
• The trip home
• i. "Faulty wiring in trailer"
• ii. If you need fuel and the won't let you change lanes, run em off the road!
• iii. Texas on $80 in fuel - aka: roadside table in Texas

 

Feel free to remind me of other events that I may have missed or forgotten about. I'll add them to the final manuscript. :)

Blackberry Creed

I happened to glance in one of my humor folders and found this creed that I wrote on November 14, 2007. Personally I think it's funny, and hopefully you do also. :)

Blackberry Creed

This is my blackberry. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My blackberry is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my blackberry is useless. Without my blackberry, I am useless. I must use my blackberry true. I must text faster than my enemy who is trying to text me. I must text him before he texts me. I will...

My blackberry and myself know that what counts in this war is not the messages we send, the noise of our ringtones, nor the calls we make. We know that it is the minutes that count. We will text...
My blackberry is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its screen and its keypad. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my blackberry clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God, I swear this creed. My blackberry and myself are the defenders of my job. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life...
So be it, until victory is USAirways’s and there is no enemy, but peace!

USAirways Jet Pull

I know it's been a while since I last posted. Heck, it's been almost 3 months! Anyway I figured now was as good of a time as any. This morning we had a jet pull at work with the proceeds going to the United Way.

First off: Me and 8am just don't do well together. :)
Second: An Airbus A319 is one heavy plane. Yeah, I know there are MUCH bigger, but it still isn't easy to pull.

Here are the pictures that Josh took while we were pulling.


This was an Airbus A320 that was just sitting around in the maintenance area so I took a picture of it.

Here's the baby that we were going to pull. All 100,000 lbs of her.





Me and Mark getting ready, with Matt in the background.



































Our group picture after finding out that we just made 2nd place!!!! Not bad for a bunch of IT employees.

Another group shot.

As we were walking away, we found out that we had inadvertantly cheated. There were 21 of us instead of 20 so we had to do the pull over again.

At this point we're all angry, so watch out airplane.

Overall our 2nd time was .05 seconds slower than our first time. Pretty good for having 1 less guy.















This is just Austin wanting his picture taken in the hanger. He'd never been in it before.

More Scorpion Hunting

I decided to go out tonight and see just how good of photos I could take with my new digital SLR (Canon EOS 30D). Ends up, I can take some really good photos, even in virtually no light. The only real problem that I did run into was Teresa scaring them away, and a tripod that can't support the weight of the camera. :(

Anyway, enjoy the photos.