Only a year

Well, looks like I failed again at this whole blogging thing again...

But, here's another round of updates:

- The job change was definitely for the better, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the chance to learn some new technologies and really dig in and make some improvements to the system.
- Our changes at home have been huge... my wife is now staying home with my daughter, and another that's still on the way. We didn't realize it before, but both of us working was becoming pretty stressful, and it's been a nice change.
- I graduated with my Masters last summer.  That was a pretty stressful 2 years, but it was a great experience.

All in all, it's been a great year!

Overdue

Holy overdue posting Batman!

To start off... I've taken a long long break here, but I think I've had some valid reasons, all of which can be summed up by the following: I've been way too busy to post.

Since my last post, there have been a few things going on for me, so I'll just go through and make a quick list containing some of the major events/projects:

• My daughter is now about 2 1/2, and she's really awesome. It takes a lot of time and energy to be a parent, and especially early on, it's a bit of a pain at times, but it's totally worth it to be able to have a fun little spunky friend in your life who absolutely loves you and loves to spend time doing all kinds of fun and silly things :)
• I've gone back to school, working on a Master's degree in Information Security and Assurance. This has been fun, enlightening, challenging, frustrating, and time-consuming. I still think it's been worth the work, but it's incredible how difficult it is to keep motivated while also working full time. I'm actually just about done though, and hopefully will be able to complete the final projects in the next month or so.
• I've changed jobs (twice). About a year and a half ago I moved from an automated testing position, to a development role, where I worked on testing tools. This was a great learning experience as well, and I was able to dig a lot deeper into software development processes and techniques. It was a pretty good experience, but as of this week, I've moved again. This time I'm moving into a new role  where I'll be maintaining and improving some of the internal systems used to provide communications services to our customers. It should be another challenging position, and I'm pretty excited for the opportunity.

So... that's only some of the major items, but it feels good to get this updated again, hopefully this time it won't be so long before the next post!

Abby

My daughter, Abigail, was born last week!  It's been amazing to see the changes in our lives, and the almost daily changes for her, even in the first week.

The support we have received from family and friends has been truly appreciated, especially from our small group, who have provided dinners since we've come home.  It's such a simple thing, providing dinner, but it goes a long way.

Busy summer

So, as usual, I stopped posting to the blog as soon as things got interesting :)

I've really been enjoying photography, and have continued posting at my photo blog.  I've also recently been pretty active at http://photo.stackexchange.com, which is a Q&A site dedicated to photography.

My other hobby lately has been baking... I know, a guy who bakes.  Go ahead, laugh if you want, but good bread goes really well with grilled food.  Also, it's incredibly easy to do, and tastes great.

In other news, I'm going to be a dad in January, which is both exciting and a little scary.  I mean, I'm sure Amy and I will both be good parents, but it just doesn't seem right.  Either way, this is keeping us fairly busy trying to figure it all out and get things ready.

Add to that my work and involvement at church and Plainfield Lodge #653, which all makes the calendar a little more difficult to keep in order.  All in all, I wouldn't change a thing, but looking back through all that I'm not feeling as bad about ignoring the blog...

Christmas

Yesterday we had christmas at my parents house.  Although we had all already given most of our christmas gifts, it was really nice for Amy and I to have some time with everyone up here and exchange gifts again.  I think everyone was very happy with the gifts (I know I was). Afterwards we spent the afternoon/evening playing games.

I think one of my favorite parts was playing a card game my brother got us for christmas called Fluxx.  Basically, the whole idea of the game is that you have to lay the right cards to accomplish a simple goal... the fun comes with the rules... that are always changing (along with the goal that changes too!)  I'd never heard of it until yesterday, but it is an awesome game!

The other gift that I'm really excited about is a new camera lens (the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II).  It is a really simple lens which is good because it forces me to work a little more to get the shot i want. It's also creates much sharper images than the other lens I have, which I'm really excited about!

All in all, I had a great time and am looking forward to traveling up to Michigan later today for Amy's family's Christmas celebration.

End of the decade...

I ran across a great story today about dumb moments in technology from 2000-2009.  It's a great read and brings back some great memories of ideas I've had the pleasure to laugh at over the last 10 years.  I hope others enjoy it as much as I have!

Amazing evening, and a new camera

Not really that much to say, except that I'm really enjoying my new camera, and the sunset tonight was really spectacular.