I took the title of this post from a buddy of mine at http://geekeguy.blogspot.com/2010/03/squirrel.html. Seemed like an appropriate title for a post where I will talk about how many irons I have in the fire, and how many cookie jars I’ve got my fingers in. He said it well when he said that he changes direction more than his underwear. Then he went on about something else, blah blah blah SQUIRREL! I had already changed directions. He does paint some pretty awesome models, however! I saw what looked like a battleship, so I assume he’s working on ships now. But I digress…

I’m here to talk about me, and let’s face it, you are hear to read about me. You must be the poster boy, or girl, of boredom… or related to me… Or both… Probably both. So, it seems I haven’t written since January. Let’s see if I can’t catch you up, faithful readers.

Job. My job still rocks. I get to work with code and explore new technology. It’s my thang, you know. Nothing particularly interesting there. I’m working on .NET Remoting, which admittedly is not “new tech”, but it’s new to me, and it’s pretty neat stuff. I wish I could jump into WCF with the rest of the world, but the corporate machine moves slow and cautiously, so we are still using .NET 2.0 here. Nevertheless, .NET Remoting is proving to be some pretty neat and useful stuff. The foundation it is laying for me and my counterparts will no doubt be in valuable when we do move to .NET 3.5.

Bills are still piling up on us, like everyone else in the world. So, I still take side projects to supplement my income. It’s a great way to supplement the income and get some extra cash into the coffers. I’m doing this stuff at home anyway, so might as well make some cash at it too. I’m building up a nice client list and who knows maybe one day down the road it would be a sustaining income.

Heidi is slightly ramping up her cake decorating business again. I’m so glad to see her doing that. We both know it’s a passion for her, and I know that she would be wildly successful at it, given the proper time and place of business to do it. In the meantime, there’s yummy, home made, desserts at our house again. :)

The food we’re eating in general is much better now too, thanks to Heidi. She has taken it upon herself to make sure we are all eating whole foods at least 90% of the time, and that the meat we eat is properly handled through it’s entire lifecycle. We watched Food, Inc. recently and it was a bit of a wake up call for us. Nothing we didn’t already know, but we just got tired of being ok with it. I must admit, I feel a heck of a lot better now that my diet is better. Can’t wait to get further down the road with it.

I recently had to put in a new climate control system for my home office. Too much computer equipment in there now! Kinda neat to have that room on its own “zone”.

My son is still having heart “flutterings” or whatever. Not sure if I mentioned this yet, and too lazy to go check. But he’s been having some heart “vibrations” (that’s what he calls them). They last a couple seconds, and scare him sometimes. We had a monitor on him for a month to capture these things. Doc said nothing looks weird. So, not sure what it is. It’s pissing me off that we can’t find anything solid on it. More to come on that — hopefully a solution — soon.

Games!! We all know how I love my games! Well, there’s this new game called, “WORK YOUR ASS OFF CUZ YOU GOT BILLS” that I’ve been playing. … Stupid bills. I got a nice new gaming machine, and haven’t been able to stretch its legs yet… grrrr.

That’s about it… More to come hopefully… But you know how that goes. :) I’m gonna hit post before I change my mind and post nothing.

I’m feeling good about things. How’s that for a new, refreshing way to start a blog post? Why you might ask? I am on a diet. We are minimizing our material purchases. I work at least 14 hours a day. My back is jacked up – I mean bad jacked up. No, those would seem to be reasons that make me unhappy. Every single one of them does, in fact, make me unhappy.

But, I am trying to look at those very same situations in a new light. I’m losing weight and feel much better about myself. Ok, maybe just a little better – but better is better. I like most of the materials that I currently own so don’t desire for much more. I like the work I do, and feel like I make a difference in a great many arenas. My doctor has just about got my back pain to a controllable level.

Blah blah, right? You might say that I just said the same things in a positive light. Big deal. Well, to me it is!! This is a new thing for me. At least a very long lost discipline. Whatever, I have it back to some extent and the days seem brighter, and filled with hope. I’ll take it!

I hear the question, “Want to grab some coffee from the cafe?” less often. It seems to have been replaced with questions like, “You saved that ziploc bag from lunch that you used for your crackers, right?” … Man how I miss breves…

Heidi is taking the same approach to things as well, and things are feeling a lot better as a whole for this family. Even in light of some events I won’t mention that might otherwise depress us quite a bit. Shut up, I said I won’t mention — stop asking. ;)

We’re both hoping our compasses are pointing in a positive direction and that it might have a positive effect on a certain little boy who looks to us for guidance in this scary world…

OH! Here’s a postscript to contrast this entire post… I over heard Heidi tell Rhys to only take three of the chocolate treats she had made (Buckeyes). I walked out and found the plate in front of Rhys with four chocolate blemishes on it.

That indicated to me that he had eaten four. I had also just heard him say that he was going to go ahead and decide to eat four. That’s his thing lately. Testing authority. Mom quickly shut him down and said “NO! I said three!!” That was before I walked out there..

Anyway, I gave Rhys the “WTF, DUDE!!” look.

He gave me the “OMG SHIT, I’M BUSTED” look and said, “s-o-r-r-y” in a whispered tone…

Then I did the ‘dad thing’ where you shut everything off and tell him to clean up, then I stare into his soul and reduce the poor kid to tears.

Then I hear Heidi say, “OMG Wait!! He only ate three!!” Turns out she had one earlier. The fourth smudge was hers…

I had to apologize and make up with my son and get him to forgive me… He eventually did. I still feel like total shit though. :(

Anyway, good night world. See you tomorrow!

Tomorrow the new year will officially start. At least in the normal sense. I will get up in the morning, outfit myself in my corporate battle gear, grab a coffee to nourish me as I march into battle, and head out the door to conquer code. There will be no bloodshed, but sometimes it feels like it. As much as that sounds like I’m not looking forward to getting back to things, I do. I’ve had a nice 16 day vacation and now it’s time to see what we can do in 2010.

There are a lot of irons in the fire. Some will have to go, and some will need stoking. Heidi is a lot more involved in these projects this year as well. It’s going to be a great year for our collaborative efforts I think. We make a great team with things like this.

So far the diet is going well. It’s a little painful and annoying, but not too much. This is the pace I want to keep and maybe this will allow me to make an actual lifestyle change. The main theme of the diet seems to be cutting back sugars and serving sizes. Makes a whole lot of sense to me. Hopefully soon I will be skinnier, feel better about myself, have more energy, and just generally look better…

We’re starting the year off right. We eliminated our car problems, are getting in shape, have brand new OSes on our workstations and media center, organized our garage, and have our eyes on the ball.

Bring it 2010, we’re ready to kick your ass into 2011. ;)

Today I left the house while my son was crying because he missed me. Nothing really stops you in your tracks like that. I had to step back and assess what’s going on in my life. I’m very busy with my moonlighting (more on that in another post) these days and since there are only 24 hours in the day, something has to give. Lately it’s been sleep and family time.

So, I made Wednesdays the official day of play. My son nodded that this was a good thing but the tears were still there. I’m not one to give him whatever he wants, but I think one devoted day amongst the other days, where he gets maybe an hour of daddy time lately, maybe is not too much to give. We’ve also been doing this thing where we go to the park on Saturday mornings. He gets to ride his bike, Heidi gets to walk, and I get to study. It’s getting a bit cold here lately, so not sure how much longer this will last.

That’s all for now. I just wanted to vent a little about how much I miss my family. I work so much because I love them so much, but it’s a bit of a catch 22.

So, I got to take my son to school for the first time today. Well, the first time for his Kinder years. He was trying to be so brave, and almost made it, till I had him come give me a hug. He broke down and started crying. He quickly recovered once I reminded him that he was supposed to be a brave soldier. LOL

It was great to go see him there… a big boy… all grown up… … :( Where did my little boy go!? :( I feel really bad for him because I know it must be so overwhelming to him. He doesn’t understand all the good this is doing for his character, etc. Ehh, by the end of the day he’s forgotten the trauma of the morning so it’s all good. I feel really bad for Heidi though. Having to go through that every morning… well, not every morning, but you know. It’s tough to watch your son feel so scared and nervous and not rescue him…

I can’t wait to go pick him up at the end of the day! :)

Pretty uneventful weekend in our neck of the woods. The most exciting thing about this weekend was my allergic reaction to my cat… He was being so nice, and acting like he missed me or something. So, I pet him. Just a little. Not even a minute long. Next thing I know my eye starts feeling funny. Before I know it my eye is swelled up so big I can’t open it. I looked like Rocky Balboa after a fight with Mr T. Just for the record, Clartin doesn’t help… I know, why I thought it would I have no idea. Dimetap no worky either. Benadryl finally did the trick. OMG.

Other than that, the other news is Heidi and Rhys are back to school tomorrow. Of course I am back to work tomorrow as well. Hopefully I can make it through the week quickly and quietly. Well, here we go! Let’s see what Monday has to throw at us!