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.

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. ;)

Hello there my faithful readers! It’s been forever and a day, and I wanted to just drop a line to say we’re still alive and kicking… The running theme these days seems to be sickness. Rhys has a cough right now, but he just got over (or is getting over) a real nasty stomach bug. It turned him into a human lawn sprinkler if you catch my drift. Poor kid just can’t seem to catch a break! On top of that, Heidi was diagnosed with Bronchitis! YAY! So much for riding this out until we get back on insurance. Chalk that up to another one of my brilliant foresights… I have remained sickness free, which is important when you have a new job.

I’m still working on websites on the side, and have been working with a local politician. A friend of mine and I are thinking of marketing to the local political scene to see if we can drum up some beer money. The market is ripe, and we have the skills. Might as well try capitalizing on it. At the worst it’s a learning experience — such is life.

Not too long ago, Rhys when #2 on the big boy potty for the very first time! So, he got himself a brand new red bicycle! He’s so excited about it. Even in his weakened condition, he insists on riding his bike outside a little bit each day. He gets about two good pedals in and then has to rest to catch his breath and drink some Gatorade! LOL  He’s a trooper! Of course, we don’t let him take it too far! What’s more, with me concentrating on studies, mom seems to be the one taking him out most of the time. I swear I will do more here soon, but studies take priority right now.

Speaking of studies, I’m studying up on .NET programming. Both the Win32 side and the Web App side. It’s so good to be back in Visual Studio, even for my Open Source projects. I have to hand it to Microsoft with Visual Studio, it’s just some bad ass shit. I gave my old copy of Studio to the neighbor kid who has shown an interest in programming — my good deed for the month. Hopefully he doesn’t squander the opportunity to take the free time in his life right now, and get a leg up on the working world.

That’s about it. Nothing too interesting, and I’m sure I am forgetting quite a bit of shit, but I’ll write more in here, I promise. Even if it is fluff, like this. :)

Well, the latest news is I’ve landed softly again with another company here in town. I’m really excited about this new position! When I got laid off from AOL and joined the small company of MindPlay I was so ecstatic about getting back at a small company. Well, I’ve learned that small companies have their “challenges” as well. I’m happy to have found another corporate job. It will have its “challenges” as well. But, something I’ve learned, corporate “challenges” are organized. ;)

In other news we’ve began the grand transformation of our shitty backyard. Just minor upgrades at the moment, but we actually have a vision for where we want this to go. It’s nice to see the start of a nice place to hang out in our backyard. For FIVE years we have left it a pretty blank slate, and had I realized it was so easy and cheap to make it nice out there, I would have done it long ago. Credit to my lovely wife as she saw this from day one. Double credit for her not getting too mad at me for not doing that sooner. Thanks honey!

I went to Ike’s Coffee Shop for the first time today. It was nice! The barista knew her shit, and the coffee was prepared properly. I was there to meet someone about a possible contract work, and I think it went very well. We’ll see how things pan out going forward. What really caught my eye at Ike’s was the gauntlet of laptop power cords criss-crossing the floor! I sat there while I waited for the meeting to start, and just reflected on what it would be like if THAT were your office. How cool would that be? Well, one day it will happen. I won’t take no for an answer. Just have a hill to climb yet.

So, where am I at these days? We’ll let’s see where to begin.

Monday I lost my job. It can honestly be argued that I quit or that I fired. I prefer the terminology “laid off”. How does that make me feel? Well, I liken it to getting released from a long prison term. So glad to be out, but now facing reality of getting something else going. We’ll see where this latest turn of career directions takes me.

To compound the fun, Rhys’ ear infections are back. He has to go into surgery to get tubes put in. YAY! I can’t tell you how excited we both are about this prospect. Especially the general anaesthesia part. Honestly, hasn’t this kid been through enough? That’s slated for the 27th. We’ll see if the insurance cards still work around then, but I’m not holding my breath. My ex-boss is just that way.

What else? Heidi is now sick too. It looks like an ear infection for her too! How does that happen!! It’s not like her son has two infections, and she works at a preschool. !? Of course, the recent change of events has increased the stress on my wonderful wife, but she is handling it quite well. I’m so thankful to have such a supportive wife. Truly.

I’ve sold my motorcycle… It’s gone. Done like dinner. The extra cash should help us float a bit longer if we have to. Let’s hope we don’t. I’ve applied to about 100 jobs (well, almost 100) and am not waiting for bites. Whilst waiting I’m gonna head up to Show Low to talk biz with my old biz partner, Greg. He’s talkin about starting up a web dev company. HEY! Guess what! I happen to love web development work! ;) Heading up there this Thursday.

I’ll keep all you cats posted, and if you have any ideas for me about what to do when I grow up, please don’t hesitate to email me! ;)