First Hockey Game Tonight!

Ok, so we are halfway through the season, but tonight will be my first game I attend. Can you believe it? After a stretch of seven years attending every opening night, January 10th will be my first game of the year.
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Switch to the North Central has gone smoothly so far. I am excited, as I get to work with a school I previously taught in, systems I worked in, so I do know a variety of folks.

Go Seahawks!

Woot--on to Green Bay. A good day, about gave it away to Washington, but they recovered nicely. If they play the entire game like they played at times, we can go far. And I did not tease my father in law too much!

More From First Night

Welcome 2008!

Enjoyed the First Night celebration last night. A lot more people showed up this year, though. Made for some cramped quarters, but all four of us enjoyed it! Another year began earlier to fireworks from our neighbourhood pieros and fireworks in the form of screams from our Little Bear.
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Now, we're sitting here watching the Pens play the Sabres in the outdoor game in Buffalo. Looks cold!

Little Bear

Currently Reading...

An interesting read. More since it was written in the mid-90s, before the 9/11 attacks and the huge growth in global economies.

May Old...Be Forgot...

Never did quite understand that song, but anyway, happy last day of 2007! While we will attend the First Night Celebration with the Girls downtown tonight (ok, so we attend the 'children's ceremonies which end at 7, shesh!), I started thinking about just how busy of a year it has been!

1. Myra Jeanne came into the world in January! Much to our delight. Now my Little Bear is walking all over the place.

2. Started new job in March. Still throughly enjoying it. Making a change in regions for 2008, but good things are ahead.

3. Ran my second marathon, the City of Oaks, in a new PR-4 hours 50 minutes. Could've been faster, will work on it for next time. Hot, hot summer of training, but found the Falls Lake Trail--beautiful!

4. Had my first two flights--to San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Cannot wait to get on a plane again.

Ok, so it was pretty busy. I am sure (famous last words, right), 2008 cannot rival it. We shall see!

Merry Christmas. 2007!

A great big Merry Christmas to you all! We enjoyed a fun morning--see the pic! Santa was good to all of us (I scored some professionally framed Canes things--including my SCF Game 7 ticket!). Now we begin our Northern travels to VA and PA.

A Successful Year of Reading...

While it did not feel I read much this year, with the new job, chasing after L and M, and the usual 'life,' looking through my journal, I did read quite a lot. My only resolution was to finish Stephen King's Dark Tower series, which I did. I read some good books on the future of business and education, including Freakonmics, Wikinomics, and A Whole New Mind. Some good history reads also, including Andrew Jackson and Poland (which took forever! but was a good read). A ton of audio books and podiobooks too, including The 7th Son Series, The Rookie (Scott Sigler is just messed up!!), and Shadow Falls. All in all, a good year. Looking forward to another good year of reads in 08!

LB or RB?

Which one are you? Right brained or left brained? Interesting to think of how as over the years industrials jobs were shipped overseas, now the left-brain related jobs (accounting, medical, logical, linear) are making their way overseas as well. We discovered this in Friedman's The World Is Flat, and now I just finished reading Wikinomics and am in the middle of Pink's A Whole New Mind. The creative types (R-directed) seem like they will come to power, and I think we see that with the focus on product-based learning, collaboration (wikis, shared docs, flickr). That's good, as I feel I am on the fringe of being totally R-directed, with some L-directed tendencies. Definitely will foster R-directed in the girls--although Lucy B is already quite the creative girl!

Ho, Ho, Ho, Who Do You Know...

Christmas time approaches. What a quick month! What a quick year! Hard to believe that Myra will turn 1 shortly after Christmas. I think we will so enjoy ourselves this year at Christmas with the girls. Myra has shown some instances of good paper ripping, and we all know how well Lucy opens gifts. I just need to make it through one more site visit tomorrow morning, then home free! We will enjoy the holidays, then venture to the frozen tundra of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
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Looks like we will continue our New Year's Eve tradition of going to the First Night celebration Downtown Raleigh. They put so many interesting activities together. What a great time we had last year!

Christmas Really Excites Me...

What a fun time of year!! Lucy helps me each night get the Christmas Lights on. She shut the door this evening, and said, 'Uh-oh, Daddy, light out.' So we fixed it. Then she made me so proud--she had her hands on her back, and I, sensing her concern, asked what was wrong. She thought for a second, and said, we need more lights! Is she my daughter, or what!
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Myra continues to grow. She really walked all over the house tonight. Between that, and the two new teeth, she finds herself quite busy. I think Kerry and I are both excited to see her reaction to Christmas!

What's Going On in December?

Well, we're continuing on with the work as usual. My travels, although still some day trips, will slow down somewhat over the winter. Thank goodness! Now we can get back into the routines we all appreciate so much. Myra is walking--if you can believe that! At less than 10 months, she is hobbling around the house, getting into even more trouble! (-: Lucy is not quite sure yet how she feels about it. Speaking of Miss Thing--her preschool is going well. She comes home each day to draw more pictures for 'Miss Kay and Miss Ell-ooo-weeze.' So cute!
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Went to the new Marbles museum on Friday. We met Jenn Woody and Graysen there. Too fun! By the end, Lucy and Graysen were holding hands and running around. Fun!

Christmas Time Is Here...

I guess that's why the lack of recent posts. Don't worry, I will continue to post soon, but after the crazy busy November, I am slowly getting back in the swing of things.

Another Busy Week...

So, last week I completed a marathon, flew to San Francisco, and spent time with the girls. This week promises to be just as busy. After enjoying a calm day today (changed oil in Kia, vaccumed, cut my hair), I will travel for work the next three days then fly to Pennsylvania on Friday. Sounds like they will keep me busy up there (sorry Dad, not going to the TSO concert!!), then I will fly back Tuesday, participate in a conference call, and drive up to Vienna that evening for Thanksgiving. Phew!

Gutsy Gibbon Takes The Scene

Ok, you may not expect this, given my new Red Hat wardrobe (thanks to Kerry's cousin Kiely and her husband), but I am a huge Ubuntu Linux user. Gutsy Gibbon just recently came out (version 7.10) and I finally upgraded our personal laptop. Unfortunately, I still had some Windows crud on it, so I decided to totally wipe the hard drive and reinstall 7.10 with an iso disk. This worked fine, and the new work put into having the machine recognize the video card came off without a hitch this time. I did struggle with the dumb Broadcom 4328 wireless card once again, but I just got that working yesterday with ndiswrapper and a well timed update on the ubuntu forums. Now I am enjoying the beauty of the Compiz Fusion effects. Pretty sweet! Will update this XPS machine soon. That's the beauty of Linux and the Open Source movement--you can do things in your own time and things will still work. Try that with upgrading one machine to Vista and keeping the rest at XP. Do you think that would happen?

Back From San Fran--And Brought My Heart Home!

Well, I am not sure I even took it--I missed my girls pretty much! (-: I did enjoy myself. San Francisco is a neat city with tons to do. The last evening I rode the cable cars down to Fisherman's Wharf, saw Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, and just hung out. Then I rode back and did some shopping in Union Square. How great to have all of those stores right there, all within walking distance. I really thought that if we were single, we may be living out there--how great to not need a car--everything would be within walking distance.
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The flights home were booked, so I did not totally enjoy that, but everything, except that little turbulence over Utah, went smoothly. We were delayed in Charlotte for a little while, but I made it back to Raleigh and back in the arms of my 3 girls! (0:

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Now I look forward to flying up to PA on Friday to visit with everyone up there. Just a small little puddlejumper of a plane, so look out! (-:

A Few More From Halloween and the Marathon...

My Cheerleaders...




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And a little bit of rest...




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Doctor Mommy, Dora Lucy, Strawberry Myra, and Hockey Player Daddy

City of Oaks Marathon--FINISHED!

Woohooo!! The marathon is over, I finished, and actually have a new PR of 4 hours, 50 minutes. It was a tough tough run though, while I knew the 2nd half would be, the first part, coming back from Raleigh kicked by butt. I did not expect all the hills along Clark. But I finished, so yeah to me!
Now I head to San Francisco tomorrow morning for a few days. Whirlwind November continues!

Christmas Music Time!

I will post some Halloween pics soon, but it's CHRISTMAS MUSIC TIME!