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PA Bound – Again

Brad — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:56:46 +0000

I’m packing up the ole family Truckster and we’re PA bound. Mom’s not dong so well lately and with her diagnosis, it’s important that we get up there for a visit. So, come tomorrow at 4am, we’ll be on the road. I’ll be logging the trip via Trapster, and if you want to follow our path, just keep an eye on this link starting at 4am tomorrow. Until I return, be safe everyone.

The Flood: Helping a friend.

Brad — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:33:26 +0000

This past Sunday I saw first-hand what the floods have done to portions of the Atlanta suburban areas as I answered a call for assistance from some friends of mine whom had family affected by the flooding. I ventured into Austell, about 6 miles from my home and right into the flood zone. The waters had since receeded, however, you could tell where the water level was just by the brown coating on the trees. I arrived to the house to find a pair of dumpsters and a whole lot of volunteers working their collective butts off to get this place gutted and cleaned up. When I arrived I was put to work cleaning up some insulation and other related things, dumping them into the dumpster. The day rolled on, and throughout the day other people stopped by with food for the workers, and Red Cross vehicles would pass by once in a while. Thankfully the weather was sunny, if a little hot, but it’s better than the downpour of rain the day before.

You never really know how a natural disaster can affect someone until you see first-hand what happens. I’ve seen some devistation in my time due to my involvement with the local fire department back in Pennsylvania, but nothing to this level. I’m just happy I could help out. If you get the chance to help someone out, I say take it. You might get sore from the work, but it will make you feel better knowing you’re helping out someone in need.

Organization: Again.

Brad — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:21:34 +0000

Last night it occurred to me that my online life is in a bit of a disarray, still. The last time I spoke about this, I had planned on moving to username per web service. Unfortunately the username I want is taken on some, and not on others, so that of course leaves me in a bit of a bind. I think the easiest (and least painful) thing to do is just keep the accounts I have and create a contact page on my site, so everyone can find me easier.

Now, as far as organization in general goes, I’m still trying to find a balance of accessibility vs. usability. Right now at work I have a wiki set up on my box, which works pretty Ok. The problem is when I work remotely, sometimes the connection can slow to a crawl, which in turn slows me down when I’m trying to look at something. I was looking at planner mode for Emacs, but for one reason or another there are some issues. Someone previously mentioned org-mode, but I’m not a huge fan of the outline format. My other options are just straight up text, Muse mode for Emacs, or else running lynx and trying to navigate my wiki that way.

My reminders setup is working well. For those who don’t know, I’m using Remind + Wryd, which is lightweight and pretty simple to use. I’m also running a cron job to create a popup prior to me logging in for the day so I know at a glance what I have to look forward to. It works nicely, and stays out of the way.

Happy 2009

Brad — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:53:21 +0000

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. My family and I had a pretty uneventful holiday, but we ended up with some new geek toys. Beth and I are now the proud owners of an Asus eeePC 900 series netbook. Hers is white, mine is black and the kicker is these are the Linux versions. Unfortunately the version of Linux Asus went with appeared to be a modified version of Xandros running a full-blown KDE install. Not the greatest choice for these little devices, so I did a little searching and came up with an Ubuntu derivative called CrunchBang. It’s a reasonable distro, using Openbox + lxpanel and a few other things instead of a full-blown environment. They had a version for the eeePC as well, so I downloaded that and installed it. Everything seems to be working fine out of the box. So much so that I converted my work desktop over. The work machine was starting to act a bit wonky after an Arch update, so I’m not sure what the story is there. The home desktop seems to be just fine, but who knows. I like playing around, so I might give Crunchbang a go there as well.

2008 had it’s ups and downs, but all in all it was another wonderful year here in Georgia. Emma got to enjoy Christmas, although she’s still too young to get the whole idea. All she needed was some wrapping paper and she was happy. I got married, something I thought I’d never do again, but it amazes me what finding the right person will do (married on leap day for the win!). Professionally I’ve been on a steady path, even in a rocky economy. 2009 is looking up. Here’s a few things I want to accomplish this coming year:

* Get back to working out. We’re both trying to get more healthy.
* Get a better handle on some programming language (Python, or even pondering Ruby at this juncture)
* Pick up a new hobby. Potential ideas are photography (of the digital variety), electronics (I’ve been reading a lot of Makezine lately) or something else

How well will I do on some of these? The year will tell. Happy 2009 everyone!

Happy Birthday and more

Brad — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:59:51 +0000

First of all, happy birthday goes out to my lovely wife who’s turning 21 again for the forth time. 25′s not so bad, it’s once you hit the 30s, like me :P

This weekend has been pretty ok, nothing earth shattering, just a usual weekend. We had a decent lunch for her birthday and spent the afternoon together. This evening she’s heading out and I’ll be hanging out here. I think tonight I’m finally going to get to work on a project to make work life easier. My coworkers should be thankful I’m such a computer geek.

Fatherhood: Year one down, and I'm still here!

Brad — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:57:14 +0000

Emma turned a year old on September 13th, and it’s been quite the year. I have to admit I kinda miss her being so small when she was younger. She would fall asleep on my chest, and for a while, that’s the only way we could get her to go to bed. She’s outgrown that stage, and now she’s on the verge of walking. Our lives will never be the same again. Being the proud daddy that I am, I present to you my baby girl, at 11 months:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qwndSicQ8E&hl=en&fs=1]

The next year should be interesting. I can’t wait.

The "Hey, we're in PA" Trip Writeup

Brad — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:31:06 +0000

I was going to go into a long, detailed retelling of the trip, but opted to go the short and sweet route. The drive to PA was uneventful, save for the heavy-duty rain we hit while leaving Georgia. We got into town around 1:30 or so, and decided to go see my family. The week was filled with a couple of events, notably lunch and subsequently dinner with old co-workers, and Sunday was Emma’s first birthday. She made out with a lot of stuff, and of course ended up wearing a lot of icing (although I think wore almost as much). Emma seemed to be OK with everything as long as mommy and daddy were within reach. She still has some ‘stranger’ problems, but I think with more exposure and some time, she’ll outgrow them. The family absolutely loves our daughter, and it’s great. She’s officially a year old now, and I still can’t believe it. Time flies, as they say.

We also took in the PA Ren Faire, and unfortunately it was a hot and humid day. That made things pretty miserable, and the price of admission didn’t help either. All told, we dropped around 80 to 100 bucks between the gate fee and food. I think they’re going to price themselves out of business, as I didn’t really feel that it was worth the 28.95 per adult we paid to get in. *sighs* I was pretty let-down, as I was excited for it and had told Beth good things about it. It’s not to say that the day was a total waste, though.

The family was also happy to see us as well. I’m glad my family has taken so well to Bethany. She really does make me happy and they see that. There was some family-related drama while we were up which took away a bit of our enjoyment, but all in all it was a decent visit. I did realize that Georgia has been solidified in my mind as home. PA has changed a lot since I was last up, and some of the changes make me sad. The trip back was uneventful as well. Emma had a new car seat to adjust to, so she was a little cranky about that, but once we got home, things reverted back to normal.

Home safe!

Brad — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:51:18 +0000

Made it back from PA in one piece. A better update will follow.

On vacation

Brad — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:35:15 +0000

Made it to PA in one piece, thankfully. Enjoying the family and the memories that come with coming back here. If you want to get together with me at some point this weekend, let us know and I’ll see what we can do. We’re leaving on Monday to head back home.

Lack of Inspiration

Brad — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:47:55 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and I can’t really say I’ve been inspired to. In a little less than a week, I’ll be a father of a one year old. So far, so good. She’s going to be a smart girl, and she’s really close to walking. I expect that to happen any day now. Next week at this time, we should be pulling into PA. I’m excited, and I know Beth is just as excited, if not more so. This will be the first time most of the family gets to meet Emma, so that should be fun. Mix in a trip to the Ren Faire and meeting up with various old friends and it spells for a great escape from the usual Georgia things going on.

Nothing really of note on the geek front, sadly. I’ve just been in a bit of a slump. I’ve been seeing a therapist for some grief / depression issues and so far it seems to be helping. Combine that with the best wife on the planet and a loving daughter, and you have a combination that will help me overcome this. It took a while, and some nudging, from loved ones to get me into therapy, but I think it’s going to make a big difference and help me deal with things.

At any rate, I hope to get my geek groove back at some point. Lately I’ve been in a bit of a slump, as I mentioned, but I’m pretty sure it will be short-lived.