BLOGS FOR JUNE 2008

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Week ending June 29th, 2008
It's a nice, lazy Sunday and it was a relatively relaxing week overall as well. Almost all of my projects at work are complete that we had earmarked as urgent so I spent most of this week catching up and more teaching the PCL how to configure and assign storage. Pretty soon they should be able to handle all of that themselves so we (storage) can focus more on our projects.

Tuesday night after work my friend Jason and I cruised over to his house to look at a section of his fence from the gate to the side of the house. The gate was in pretty sad shape and he wanted to replace it so he asked for my help. We had dinner and decided on a plan to replace the gate. More on that later.

On Thursday night we had another band rehearsal. Granted this one went MUCH better than the first one, we still were short a drummer. I'm not sure why that is as finding bass players has always been harder for me than finding drummers. So since our drummer didn't show up we grabbed a replacement guy and jammed for a couple hours. I have to learn to take it easy on my voice. What I am singing now is pretty hard for me so I have to tone it down or I'll blow my voice out after five or six songs. Midway through the session I took it easy and was able to make it the full two hours. We did make some progress but we need to do something to find a reliable drummer.

On Saturday morning I woke up late as I didn't get to bed until after 2am (heh). I loaded up my tools and compressor and headed over to Jason's house. As soon as I got there we drove over to Home Depot where we took the list we had made on Tuesday night of the materials we needed. While he was taking care of a few things I tore down the old fencing and gate and started to take an assessment of things. We got the lumber in order and started cutting. We got the upper section of the fence done and while Jason was grabbing some things we missed from Home Depot, I mounted the upper fence section. We then had some lunch (YAY FOR BIG STEAKS! WOOT!).

After that we worked on the middle section and laid down some concrete to support things. The old gate just sat on the ground with nothing to support it so it was really rickety (if that's a word, haha). Once that was done we built the gate and mounted everything. It came out pretty good and it's as solid as a rock. Other than a few minor things, it looks pro :)

When we were done we went out and got some really great pizza. After that I showed him how to cut some drywall to fix the portion of his wall that the water heater ruined when it exploded. Heh. Being a homeowner is great and all but you really have to be handy to fix things when they go wrong. We figure we saved him a pretty large chunk of change doing the wall and fencing on our own. There are some pics HERE if you want to check out the before and after stuff. I have a sunburn though it's not too bad. As you can tell from the pics, I needed some color anyway.

So today was a lazy Sunday as I took care of my normal things I do on Sunday. And!!! Lots of professional motorcycle racing with both World Superbike (WSB) and MotoGP going on. I already watched the WSBK races and now I'm watching Valentino Rossi make a huge mistake and crash into another rider. My boy Hayden is in third place and I've got my fingers crossed he can hang on to it. Wow, lots of crashes already. Hopefully everyone is ok. Crashing definitely sucks!

Well that is about it for now. As you can tell it was a busy but FUN FUN FUN week. Building that fence and gate was a pretty rewarding experience and being able to help a friend out made it all worth it. Jason's a cool cat for sure and a good friend. It's also good for me to keep my "man skills" up, haha. Been a while since I've done some wood working.

Hope you had a great week and keep smiling. Life is GOOD :) I'll leave you with this great quote:

"Blessed is the man who seeks not the counsel of the ungodly..."

Cheers!

B.

Week ending June 22nd, 2008
What an excellent week :)

It's Sunday and I just got back from the mall (yes me -- yes, the mall haha). I had to pick a few things up that you can only get there so I was forced to do it. Men and malls just don't go together well. The sun is out and it's hot a heck but I think later today I will swing by the fair with my "friend" and check out the slingshot ride. Now that looks COOL!

Right now the MotoGP race is on from England and I'm sitting here wondering what the deal is with Hayden. He got the new motor and frame that he wanted but he's in 5th place after being as high as third. I mean, I pull for the guy every race but I can start to see what Honda is concerned about and that is simply that he doesn't have the "killer" instinct to push the bike to it's very limit. I learned first hand what happens when you push it past the limit (you crash) but still, he's on the best bike in the group and has the best supporting cast. He should be doing better. Wow, he just tried to past Dovincioso and nearly binned it. Make smarter passing choices, bro!

Ben Spies, the AMA Champ, is riding in this race and isn't doing too well. By my count he's in 15th place about 31 seconds down. No worries bro, I've been there too. Just keep your head down and the throttle twisted and you'll do fine.

My friend came in from out of town yesterday so I took her to Church (Of course!) and then we went to eat and hang out for a while ;) She really enjoyed the service and dinner afterwards was impeccable as always. I think Saturday's have become my regular Sushi days, lol. Can't live without it. She's headed home today so "C" have a great flight and we'll talk to you soon.

All in all this has been an excellent week, work wise and life wise. I can't really complain at all. Every day I'm waking up with a smile on my face. Almost makes me feel guilty. NOT!!! haha! When God' rules your life, you have plenty to smile about. Work is going good with our new boss but once again we've lost another team member. We knew this was going to happen but you hate to see it. He's a pretty cool guy and we share a lot of common hobbies (riding motorcycles being one of them). But, we're all wishing him the best and we're sure we'll hear from him again soon.

Oh yeah! The band thing. That's going very well too (it's a trend what can I say? haha) We're having a jam session this Thursday now that I'm over my cold. I guess my voice passed the test because they want to jam and learn new songs. I figure if we can bang out about 10 decent songs we can start playing shows really soon. I'd like to do Canes as I remember playing there in the past and they have a really good sound system and the area is great (right on Mission Beach). After the first show we'll take an assessment of how things are and then decide where we want to play from there. It'll be fun being a front man is new to me and not having to carry around gear is a nice added touch.

Well that is about it for my week. There's some other things mixed in there but tis better to keep some cards held close to the vest. ;)

Have a great week and we'll chat with you later.

B.

Week ending June 15th, 2008
Did you make it past Friday the 13th ok? Haha. Yeah, what a week. The cold I caught over the weekend got really bad on Sunday night. I went into work on Monday but left at noon and ended up sleeping 14 hours straight on Tuesday. The good part about that was I was feeling much better. Summer head colds - whodathunkit? Because I was sick I pretty much stayed away from the gym all week. I hate missing workouts but what are you going to do? Make everyone else sick? I'm pretty sure that's where I picked the cold up, by the way.

Because I was sick I wasn't able to hook up for another jam session but I am sure that will happen soon. There's nothing worse than trying to sing with a cold. I've done it before and well, it never seems to work out. I'd have to pull an Ashley Simpson and just lip sync. ROFL!

Another bad thing about being sick is you can't hang out with your friends. Ah well, we'll be having a MotoGP party soon, won't we John? Speaking of racing, did you watch the WSBK races? Noriuki Haga raced both races this weekend and won - with a broken collar bone. I guess he went to Dr. Ting in LA (who is well known as the expert on broken collar bones for racers) and fixed him up good. He got a plate, a rod and six screws I guess -- and lots of pain killing shots. When I broke my collar bone, the Doctor told me that it wasn't worth the cost to him to do the surgery. That's the difference between being a club racer and a world renowned WSBK racer, I guess. haha.

Church was different this weekend. They had this violinist play. He was actually pretty funny. He told this joke:

"Do you know the difference between a fiddle and a violin? The number of teeth you have." - haha. I thought it was pretty funny. He did this long solo that was pretty cool but before he started he played "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (gotta be a Southerner to know that one!). Well about the first couple lines of it. He started laughing -- and so did I. I think only 4 or 5 of us got it, but it was still funny.

Not much to report from work this week. Same ol, same ol. That's good though as it's really keeping me busy and each week provides a new challenge. We're working with a contractor on some special software. She's pretty funny and cool to hang out with. I've been working with the testing group a lot because I have so many solutions going for certification. A lot of the work I am doing is going to have a positive effect (hopefully) on whether we keep this account or not. We'll see :)

That's about it for this week. I hope you have a good rest of your weekend. I'm getting ready to go watch a movie with a friend. Which might be hard with traffic like it is, living right next to the fair and the US Open this week at the same time. haha.

Talk to you later!!

B.

Week ending June 8th, 2008
Well other than the cold I am fighting right now this was an excellent and fun-filled week :) Last Sunday I got to watch a day full of motorcycle racing (both WSBK and AMA). Then on Tuesday some of us from work went to the Cubs/Padres game. I stayed late at work and then took the Trolley over to the park. What was so funny about the ride over is there were nothing but Cubs fans. I'm serious, it looked liked "Wrigley Field West". I mean, I know the Padres aren't having a great season but you'd think there'd be more of their fans their than ours. We met some pretty interesting people at the Ballpark too. A group of people from another company were there. We we're just all having a great time laughing and joking around. We exchanged business cards too so we'll see where that goes ;)

On Wednesday after work I had an "audition" session with a guitarist and a bassist for this new project I am working on. Unfortunately the drummer flaked (there's always one unreliable guy in a band, right?!) so we had to run through the songs without a percussion session -- which makes things a tad difficult. I'd say it went pretty well. Being as I have started bands before, this one went much better than the other two. If we can find a reliable drummer I think we'll be good to go. I have a friend that books bands and he seems interested in doing our booking for us. Next session I'll be bringing my guitar to fill in some parts. Besides, I'll always be a guitarist at heart even if I am the lead singer in this band.

Work was really busy this week. We had the manufacturer of our storage come out on Tuesday and Wednesday and most of Thursday. Two of our storage devices needed a lot of work (they are getting up there in age, technology-wise so that's understandable). I learned a lot as far as the inner workings of the storage so it was by no means a waste of time. Work is going good as far as I can tell and every day is fun. It's an exciting job and I love what I do. Review time is coming up too so we'll see what happens there.

On Saturday morning I got up early to go golfing with a friend from work. The night before I woke up a few times during the night as I thought I was having allergy problems. (Can't....breathe....*grin*) Well I am here to tell you on Sunday afternoon that it wasn't just allergies -- I have a full-blown cold - D'oh! It's no wonder I wasn't as sharp as I could have been on the course. Actually it started off well enough. A birdie, bogey and two pars, so I was even through four holes, then it all went downhill from there. Haha. Oh well, at least I did not take any mulligans. No cheating here.

Saturday night I took a friend to Church with me. She is not a Christian but is interested in learning more. She was taken back a bit by our Pastor (He is very much old-school about what the Good Book says, not what man's interpretation is). So she didn't like some of the things he had to say but understood why he said it. He wasn't bashing anyone or anything, just more or less showing what God's word says and how people can do things, such as Yoga, and not realize they are actually straying away from where God says you need to be.

After Church we went and did my favorite - SUSHI! I pigged out (stuffy nose and all) and that's when she was telling that though she didn't always agree with our Pastor, she did respect him and he really gave her food for thought. Well, let's see if some of those words sink in and make a difference in her life. I Really do like my Pastor and feel that the message is exactly what I missing from Saddleback.

As I sit here chucking down "DayQuil" wondering how long this box of tissue is going to last, I think I'll flip the tube on and watch today's MotoGP race. Please tell me Hayden found some speed somewhere. My boy ain't' doing too well this and it looks like he might have to find another employer next year. That's the thanks you get for winning a MotoGP championship, I guess. They change the bike on you to fit another rider's style and then poof, you're out of a job. I am sure another team will pick him up though. He's too good of a rider to be jobless.

Well that's it for now. As you can tell I had a pretty fun but busy week. It looks to be more of the same this week as well, but that's just the way I like it.

Cheers and keep 'er shiny side up!

B.

Week ending June 1st, 2008
It's Sunday and a weekend full of World Superbike and AMA Racing! I am much more excited about the WSBK races than I am the AMA. The AMA races are, for the most part, pretty boring. "Suzuki wins" - yawnl. At least with WSBK you never know who is going to win and as Carlos Checa and the Honda CBR1000RR proved, it's anybody's game. I'm not surprised the Harleys -- err Ducatis did not fair well. Having ridden them, they have no gas up top and always lag behind the faster 4 cylinder bikes on long tracks like that. Plus, Ducati whines so much about getting their way in WSBK I am surprised they don't just start calling it World Ducati Cup. Build a race-able 1000c 4-banger and quit yer crying! HAHA. :)

Coming up on Tuesday I will be showing up late and staying late at work because when I "clock" out, I'm headed right to Petco Park with the gang from work to go see my Cubbies take on the lowly San Diego Padres. Sorry San Diego fans, this just isn't your year. I haven't been to a baseball game in a long time. In fact, I think the last game I went to was in the late 90s at Anaheim Stadium. I'm definitely looking forward to a hot dog, a coke, some peanuts and watching the Cubs rip some home runs.

Work is going great as always. Most of my projects are now in the certification process so I feel good that come November I'll be able to take a few weeks off and head home to Florida for Turkey, Fun, Sun and LOTS of Golf. They've got some great courses in my hometown and it's a rip to play with my friends for a little friendly game of (non cash) betting. Maybe if I win this year, I'll have him wash my rental car. Muahaha.

Church was great, as always, last night. We're getting a guest speaker next month, Greg Laurie. If you listen to 107.9 then you may have heard his name. He's widely known with Calvary Chapel and I've listened to him many times. I really like how he delivers the message and am looking forward to hearing him in person. Oh yeah, we had Sarah McIntosh again this weekend. I've heard a lot of singers before and her voice is like a "Siren" (in a good way) to me. Probably one of the most beautiful voices I've heard in a long time. She's really talented.

Well it's short but this week has been pretty busy with work and I still have some things to take care of before I hit the sack. Hope you're doing well and chat with you later!

B.