Prolific Blogger I am not

So I last blogged in February, about pretty much nothing. Now it is April (well April is about to exit stage right) and I feel the need to blog again about pretty much nothing. But before I proceed to ramble on or whine or moan, I would like to take a minute to say thanks:

1. Thanks dear reader for reading my blog and thanks most of all for not replying and reminding me of what a nerd/dweeb/screwup/loser/nerd ( um I said nerd twice…) that I am.

2. Thanks to God, for allowing a shy mixed up kid that still tingles when thinking about his old timex sinclair 1000 computer to be able to make a living playing with bigger computers.  I can still remember some milestones:

1. Writing my first BASIC program similar to 10 print Dave Rules  20 Goto 10
2. Pirating Wordperfect 5.1 in College and before that being so cool that I sold 5.25 inch floppies because I bought them 10 at a time.
3. Buying a 20 MB that is Megabyte hard drive for my amber monitor XT clone and thinking that I could never fill it up. IT would hold like two million wordperfect docs and 15 million excel spreadsheets or actually that would be lotus 123
4. Windows 3.0 coming out after I graduate from college and just elated that I could play solitare! Probably the BEST windows app ever.
5. Working at Micro Center and learning so much, I remember my buddy Rick installing Novell 3.xx and then we get a prompt that says something like fs1: and not knowing any other commands
6. Struggling at the SACK lunch college trying to get FreeBSD to work. 
7. More recently, seeing VMware vmotion in action. and then we have storage vmotion.
8. What is next? I am thinking fs1: bouncing around the cloud and the data center being in the same place where cable tv comes from. I am sure it is in a big building somewhere.

See you in two months when the need to ramble/babble overwhelms me!

ecto

Giving Ecto a try. 

I always think that I want to blog and tweet more.  Maybe I long to be cool? I know for sure my Love Language is “words of affirmation”, so maybe that is why I talk to no one in particular?

Work has been hectic/productive and frustrating all in one big ball of “let’s get stuff done and save money!” 
My weekends are way too short:

Hopefully I only blog when:

When I have something worth saying

Book Review

Book Review of “The Truth About You” by Marcus Buckingham

This book affirms a couple of cliche’s that I love to use: 1. Be a Jack of All trades but a Master of One. I believe we really can only do a couple of things well. 2. If you aim for nothing in particular that is probably what you will hit. I believe we do need to drill into our strengths and magnify them. Simply stated I love this book. (It has three very cool things: 1. an accompanying CD/DVD which provides rich multimedia content 2. It has a neat little memo pad (read the book to see what it is for) and 3. it is a short quick read!) I agree with what he says! Focus on your strength. Don’t fall into the fallacy that you can build your weak areas into strength’s. I have seen this in life. I knew someone who was great at pouring concrete and cutting down trees. But put him inside to put up trim or any detail work and it just wouldn’t work. Learn what your strength’s are and maximize your potential in that area.

Take his challenge and start building your job (I agree with the author, there is no perfect job) into your strengths. I doubt that your boss will even notice until they figure out how indispensable you have become to them. Life is way to short to just endure.

Knowing what not to do.

You can save a lot of time but knowing not what not to do. Knowing what not to do can sometimes be even better than knowing what to do. For instance, if you supervise people and you bug the pee out of them and are mean to them or micromanage them, you will get LESS out of them.

We ALL have to contend with the dummy factor or frustration factor, like being in the wrong line and having to start over at the end of another line.

don’t do dumb or mean things….. learn what NOT to do.

Pro 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (ESV)

How blessed am I?

My kids.   Never a dull day with these two!

Focus

I think the main thing that we as christians struggle with is our focus. Why do we struggle with some besetting sins? Could it be that we dwell on them? Would we not learn to appreciate God more if we focused on him the way would say wanting to get a pizza? I could paraphrase it this way, “focus ye first on the kingdom of God and then all of these things will be added to you”.

Happy Mother’s Day

This has been an especially good Mother’s day for me. My mom just had some minor surgery and is recovering very well. I am so thankful. Happy Mother’s Day!

Hallowed by thy name

I keep coming back to where Jesus instructs us to pray “Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name.” Then in today’s reading I find that Solomon builds a temple for the Name of the Lord…

2 Chr 6:38 if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their captivity to which they were carried captive, and pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name,

Solomon built a house for the name of the Lord. They (the jewish nation) valued the name of the Lord, I think they wouldn’t even say the word Yahweh? What did Jesus say? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name…

Could it be that the name and reputation of God is so precious that God would become man and let His own creation kill him in order to preserve that creation and preserve his name and reputation?

Email is only good when it works

I love email. I am like Tim Ferriss in the Four-Hour work week book
Email me.
Don’t meet with me.
Don’t call me.

Email me first, it is a great form of comunnication when it works and it mostly works….

Here is what doesn’t work for me.

SPAM, I love Jesus, just don’t try to make me impose on my friends to prove it.

Having my earlier emails used against me… email is honest communication but it shouldn’t be considered legally binding.. I mean we do hold email to a lesser standard than the encyclopedia Brittanica don’t we?

Lack of clarity, use good subject lines.. check here for an example.