And it has been. A week or so of nothing but all-work-and-no-play.

I’ve been out on the bike some, trying to get ready for the MS150 come September. I just can’t get enough cycling in, and the weather hasn’t helped much. A lot of rain, along with some real severe stuff this week. It’s much, much cooler now though, and the riding is fantastic!

I’ve also been getting pieces ready for my show in July at Framations. The pieces are getting cranked out, one by one. I’m figuring I need 20-30 large pieces for the show, so I still have a good little ways to go before I’m done with that.

And work is work. I’m getting deeeeeeply immersed in my new job, and that is taking a ton of energy from me. I’m enjoying it though, and that’s the key!

The folks at the office took me out for drinks and pool tonight — what a fun time! Quite a few folks showed up and made sure the night went well. I can tell I need a good bit of practice playing pool — my shooting was atrocious!

Of course, there were some photos taken, which’ll appear here shortly. 🙂

Monday I start my new gig — I’m sure it’ll make for quite a change!

Years ago, I managed a group of Windows technical resources, and after a few years doing that, I moved back into a technical role, plodding my way through a UNIX engineering group for a couple of years, followed by three years of work on a middleware engineering team.

Our company is always looking for new ways to do things. I spotted an opportunity like that, applied, and have accepted a position on the Dark Side.

Come Monday, I will be a engineering Manager again. 🙂

I’m really excited about this new gig, and have already started working on the job postings for the folks I will be hiring. A promotion is always a good thing — and this one was hard fought against some other very qualified candidates — but this one’s especially sweet because of the conditions. No 24×7 oncall, no production support duties, and best of all, I’m charting new waters for the company as well as for myself. And, I’m hiring my own staff, rather than inheriting an pre-built team. That’s a tremendous amount of latitude… and responsibility.

What a great way to end the month of April!

This morning’s sunrise was gorgeous — one of the best I’ve seen in a long, long time. It even challenged the skies I’ve seen in Negril and at the Grand Canyon.

It’s funny how that kind of sight affects me. I see the glorious beauty of the sunrise, or a storm, or the freshly fallen snow, and the big questions start hitting my brain…. Why am I not out there in it, photographing it, capturing it, and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the great outdoors?

Should I decide to change careers at some point in the future, I’ll be hard pressed not to be out there, taking it all in from within, wrapping the Big sky around me like a blanket, rather than merely watching it through the window near a cube I happen to occupy.

I have the ice photos up now…. Take a peek at just how destructive this crazy storm was. And now, the weather prognosticators are calling for snow again this weekend.

Hold on to your hats!

This week has been miserable. Monday, we were without power. I spent most of the morning cleaning up the limbs in the front yard, and returned to the cold house. Well, apparently, that little bit of winter work has saddled me with an awful cold.

I have felt horrible all week, culminating in staying home today. I slept from 10.30 last night to 5.00 this morning, tried to get going, and by 6am, I threw in the towel, took some more NyQuil, and slept until 1.30 this afternoon. I moved from the bed to the recliner in the great room, and slept off and on until about 6.30pm. How’s that for an exciting day.

NyQuil really makes for some quite interesting dreams, BTW. That’s a trip I could’ve done without. 🙂

This morning, Becky and I transferred our church memberships to First Baptist Church of Ellisville. I’d been considering this for a while, and talked with Beck to make sure we were both ready to do this. For me, this is the first church home I’ve had since the mid-80s.

FBCE has two services — traditional and contemporary, and we usually go to the traditional service. At the end of the service, some of the elder members thanked us for coming forward during the traditional service and told us that it was wonderful to have “young people” joining during that one.

On the eve of my 43rd birthday, that’s a sentiment I can certainly deal with!

2.63mi

Today begins the new year, and with it comes the obligatory resolutions. Here’s my list:

• Exercise more. More than just cycling. Pick up another sport, or find some other thing to do here at the house to further extend what I was doing with my cycling last year. My goal for cycling this year is 1000 miles. I could’ve done that in ’06, but I got lazy toward the end of the year, letting the time change control my riding.
• Eat better. Here’s where I need to do more study. If I’m gonna be serious about cycling this year, I need to make sure I’m doing the right things by my body so that it can keep up with where my brain’s trying to lead it.
• More bible study. That one’s self-explanatory, and just needs to be done.
• Not so much caffeine. I’ve been working on this one through last year, but I need to slam the door on it, and save caffeine for when it can do me the most good: headaches, riding, etc.
• Feed the business. My photography business grew a bunch last year, and my work is now hanging in half-a-dozen homes. That’s incredible to me, and I need to work on continuing that. This year, it’s my intent to apply for a few of the big art shows in town, and try to get at least one gallery showing through the year.
• Come to peace with work. This year, my work at the office has stressed me more than I can remember in quite a few years. The stress, at times, has had me contemplating whether I was in the right place anymore — I mean, I’ve found something in my photography that has truly electrified my passions. The reality is that my photography cannot sustain us financially at this time. Even if it could, I don’t know if I could walk away from a field that I’ve been working professionally for the last twenty years.

I’m sure there are more that I could come up with, but those are the ones that come top of mind. And, I’ve already started whittling at one of those, with a short ride this afternoon. And, boy what a cold ride that was!!!!

After almost 1300 miles of driving this week, we are back home. I love the travelling, but I also love being able to put myself in my own bed, snuggling up with Darla and the dogs.

We thought we were gonna run into some severe weather on the trip back. However, it was smooth sailing, with the exception of one little shower near Sikeston. And, of course, if we passed through Sikeston, we had to stop at Lamberts. As always, the food was delicious, filling, and voluminous! I still think they make the best mess of frog legs of anywhere I’ve ever been.

So, home we are, and home we’ll be for a while. There’s no new travels on the horizon, despite some background wanderlust that’s always thumping in the background of my life. I can’t watch anything that deals with the picturesque western US without getting the itch to get on the road, cameras in hand, and photograph more of this wonderful country I’ve been blessed to have been dropped into.