Another lap around the sun

Another birthday has come and gone.

Another lap around the sun in this race called life.

To be honest, I don’t really see birthdays as all that special anymore. When I was a kid, it was always “I wonder what presents I’ll get,” and “I wonder what kind of cake Mom made me.”

Anymore, it’s almost just another day.

Almost.

My birthday still means something to me, just not in the same vein it did when I was a kid. I received several birthday well wishes on Facebook, and for that I am grateful. I know there are folks who didn’t need a reminder to know it was my birthday. I took doughnuts into work for everyone in the office and had a normal day at work, followed by my normal Thursday evening. Nothing about that day particularly stood out, other than it was a Thursday. Holly and I went to AJ Bombers on Friday night and had burgers, and met up with her family on Saturday for lunch. I enjoyed the company and the celebration, but something felt different this year.

I know I’m running  the risk of sounding like an ungrateful bastard; honestly, it meant the world to me to be honored on my birthday, but I can’t figure why this year felt “different”, or even what felt “different” about any of it.

Maybe it’s the thought that this is year my 20 year reunion of my high school class, and that I really didn’t like high school.

Maybe it’s that I’m 20 years removed from high school.

Maybe it’s that I’m not getting any younger.

Maybe it’s that I realize that I’m getting older, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

where does the time go?

ok, so I’ve been a little slack on the whole writing thing…my bad.

I started school up again. I attend class once a week at the local tech school, working to improve my knowledge in the black magic of information technology. This semester’s class: Linux. So far, I’m loving it. I have previous experience with Linux in a couple of different forms, so this class will fill in gaps and stretch my mind.

Holly and I took an afternoon and headed to Chicago for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants for a delayed Valentine’s Day meal, then bopped around town before hitting the Hard Rock Cafe to replace the Hurricane glasses Holly prefers to use around the house. We stopped by Lincoln Park, but it was too cold to get out and walk around the lagoon in the conservatory as we like to do in the summer.

At this point, I’m ready to be done with winter, just like everyone else. The forecast calls for more snow this week before a warm up. I’m ready for baseball and racing season to start.

Attack of the Polar Vortex

As the weather has made quite clear, Wisconsin, and most of the country actually, is enduring a harsh cold snap. The high today hit 15 below zero, and the wind chills were near 50 below zero.

That makes for a fun day when one of your cars won’t start.

Fortunately, my wife already had a planned day off of work, so I was able to take her car as she had no plans to venture out into the Hoth-like abyss.

I was able to get my car started after getting home from work, so we now have (as of right now) to functioning cars. We’ll see what the morning brings.

The other lesson we’ve learned, being new to home ownership, is to make sure the exhaust for the furnace is clear and free from ice. We’ve now had to clear exhaust three separate times since Friday. Our furnace is one year old and has a built in safety feature to shut down when it can’t exhaust properly, so our indicator has been a less than warm house.

I don’t ever recall hearing the phrase “polar vortex” when I was a kid, or even before today, but that’s what meteorologists are calling this wonderful phenomenon that we are experiencing. I always thought it was just really really cold, and that in a few days, it would pass, as this cold snap is forecast to do. It’s going to be a little weird on Friday when we hit 35 degrees and it’ll feel like spring.

Packer football is done; now it’s the countdown to racing and baseball. Hopefully this year proves to be a good one for both my drivers and my local nine.

 

Time to get writing

Hello friends, it’s been far too long since I last wrote anything. I plan to start writing more and to stop making excuses for not writing. I generally have something on my mind to write about, but then when I sit down to write, the desire to write either leaves, or gets derailed by some other endeavor.

To bring everyone up to speed, Holly and I bought our first home last year. We purchased a condominium in Waukesha, close to both of our workplaces and with all the usual conveniences nearby. We very happy with our purchase and enjoy our neighbors. Lumos acclimated pretty quickly to the new place, aside from the hardwood floor on the main level, and even that isn’t so scary now.

I think, to get the writing process rolling, I’ll spend the next month trying to write daily. I don’t promise that the entries will be lengthy or mind-blowingly awesome, but just trying to purge the system and shake off the cobwebs.

 

Friend, thank you for joining me on this journey.

 

CH

Here I am

Time to catch everyone up, and hopefully, keep this thing going.

 

I’ve been taking classes at a local tech school to further my education. I’ve taken one class per term, with two 8 week classes this semester, balancing school with work.

It’s all gone pretty well. I’ve worked hard and received good marks in my classes and made some new friends in my field.

 

Holly and I are buying a house; a condo actually. We close in July and are eager to move in. We weren’t thinking of buying until we received an unsolicited letter from a local Realtor that had a chart showing how much money we could save if we bought and locked in on a mortgage, instead of paying ever increasing rent to someone else. We contacted a Realtor some friends of ours have used and started the discovery process. We looked at several places, deciding on our new home based on price, convenience and the updates that had been done. We’re looking forward to being home owners.

I’ve started monitoring what I eat. I’m not cutting back necessarily, just keeping on eye on my food intake.

 

Well, that’s a start. Catch you next time. 🙂

How Great is Our God

This past Sunday at church, I was singing along during the worship portion of the service along with the rest of the congregation. Holly was up front helping lead worship. Everything was fine when we started singing “How Great is Our God”

However, when we reached the chorus (How great is our God), I heard something as I sang. I heard my Grandfather’s voice among those singing. I felt my eyes start to water, and I tried to keep my voice from faltering. Overwhelmed with emotion, I simply mouthed the words as the tears spilled over.

Maybe it was my voice that sounded so much like Granddad’s. I couldn’t tell you what range or key Granddad sang in, but his voice was rich and he loved to sing.

I know this: Granddad is singing, somewhere.

They say time heals all wounds…

Eleven years have now passed since that fateful day in 2001.

Eleven. Years.

I can still tell you, in detail, where I was, what I felt.

On the evening of September 11, 2001, I remember my Mom calling me, just to make sure I was alright. I told her I was, and that I was at church for a prayer service, called that day because of the attacks.

Today, I simply remember.

It seems like this date sneaks up on my now, as time seems to fly by. After work last night, I came home and before doing anything else, slid into bed next to my wife just to hold her close to me.

I didn’t lose a loved one on that day. That doesn’t mean I can’t remember those that were lost.

I received a letter from the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles the past Saturday. Not thinking much of it, I set it aside, believing it to be the registration for one of our cars.

Oh how wrong I was.

The letter stated that my driving privileges had been revoked in Wisconsin for failure to pay a traffic citation.

When was the offense of the citation? August 28th, 2000.

 

That’s right, 2000.

 

It took Wisconsin 12 years to track me down so they could suspend my license. The other kicker about the letter was that it was dated June 8th, 2012. I got the letter July 21st 2012, so I had be driving, unknowingly, on a suspended license for several weeks.

 

The citation I hadn’t paid? Seat belt ticket. $10.

 

I lost my license to drive over $10. I’m not saying I shouldn’t have, I just find it slightly absurd. Then again, had I paid the fine, none of this would have happened.

 

I’ll be honest, I still drove. I had to get to work and class and to the DMV to get my license reinstated once I paid the fine and paid the reinstatement fee.

 

Moral of the story: pay your traffic citations, or they could haunt you 12 years later.

Green with envy…

About a month or so ago, we switched to AT&T DSL from Time Warner Cable internet to save some money every month. I’ve set up a number of computer clients on DSL and never had a problem.

Of course, once I set up my own home with it, there would be a problem; however, it was a simple problem to fix.

We had been having a speed issue almost from day one of the install. Turns out, it was a cabling issue. AT&T sends a very green cable to go from the phone jack to the DSL modem. I had swapped it out for a white phone cord so it was less obvious as I had run the cord up the wall and across the ceiling to my computer bench and that turned out to be the problem. Something about that cord wasn’t able to handle the DSL connection with speed like the AT&T green cable could.

Last night, I swapped the green cable back into service and we’re (almost) getting our advertised speed; it’s MUCH better than what we were getting.

Lesson of the story: stick with the factory equipment 😛

When things don’t go as planned…

I woke up today with a checklist of things I had to/wanted to do.

1. Give Blood

2. Take Lumos to the the dog park

3. Relax/read

4. Go to work.

I went and gave blood, then came home and picked up Lumos and headed to the dog park to run him around a bit. As I was parking, my phone rang. I couldn’t grab it because I was trying to untangle my dog, his leash and my seatbelt. By the time I got to my phone, I had a voicemail from my wife asking me to call her at work. I get Lumos into the park area, pop his leash and let him go and make the call.

Holly had forgotten to something at home that she needed at work, and asked if I could bring it out to her.

After taking Lumos home, I gather the forgotten item and start driving to Holly’s work, about a 20 mile drive from our home. While driving, I find myself getting irritated because now my day was not going to go as I planned.

I park the car and walk into Holly’s work and a thought occurs to me: I was no longer inconvenienced by my task; I was serving my wife in an important way. Suddenly, my list of “important” things wasn’t so important.

I make the delivery to Holly, gave her a kiss and let her get back to work. As I drove home, I realized my day wasn’t ruined, and that I had taken a slight detour that involved a drive with the windows down to enjoy the weather.