Hope you all had a great April Fools Day!  I was expecting the worst, but nothing happened here. Although Jessi wanted to play a prank on Edith by reporting that she'd been sent to the Principal's office. She NEVER gets in trouble at school. Quite the opposite in fact, so this would have been a good one. But in the end, she forgot (and I forgot to remind her).

So, why the title you ask? Well, I'm sitting here writing this with very little ability to actually lift my arms. I started going to the Gym again a couple weeks ago. Nothing over the top, just 3 to 4 times per week. But this time, I employed the help of a trainer for a couple sessions a month. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep me motivated.  My first session was early last week. It was a freebie session to get me back in and motivated. We worked my upper back and shoulders. I couldn't straighten my arms fully for 3 days afterward! Then I had another session last Monday to work my legs. It still hurts to go up the stairs. And today, we worked my chest. I wonder what the next couple of days will be like. All I can say is that I feel completely worked! I've also been getting a lot of cardio in. I'm already back up to 3.5 miles on the elliptical.

You know, I had a different trainer today, and he asked how old I am. When I said "37" he said "Oh, so you have the age thing working against you". WHAT?!  Ok, I know I'm getting older, but come on. Then again, maybe I should take it as a compliment because he seemed surprised that I am that old. I'll say this, I can definitely tell a difference between my abilities now and 10 years ago. My endurance is still ok, but I'm MUCH weaker. (Yeah Phil, you'd probably kick my butt in an arm wrestle now)

On to other things... 

I've been really busy lately with the new job. One of the things I've had to do is learn a new programming language called Ruby. It's been an interesting challenge. The language itself is pretty easy. In fact, it's actually quite elegant. I like it a lot. The challenge has been trying to interface it to a custom web service. The web service is non standard in the way that authentication occurs, so I had to figure out how to do some fairly advanced hacks to get the core Ruby libraries to inter-operate with it. The real problem is that while there's adequate learning resources on the net for beginners, I couldn't find anything to help with more advanced topics. So I had to resort to posting questions in Google groups, and to digging through the core library code to figure out where I could hook in. In the end, I was finally able to achieve my goal. I'm not 100% complete yet, but it is working now. So I guess I'm still competent. :)

The weather here has been all over the place. On one hand, spring is definitely in effect. My yard is beginning to erupt in new growth. A-lot of my neighbors have Bradford Pear trees, which resemble giant Q-Tips now. It's really quite beautiful. But as the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers. And, we're definitely getting our fair share of rain. (It's pouring as I type this). On the down side, with the new growth, it means it's yard maintenance time again. I'm going to have to get crazy on it because it's a little out of control at the moment. I've wanted to get started on it, but the only times in the past couple of weeks that it was dry enough, were work days, and as I said before, I've been really busy. So here's hoping for a clear weekend.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I need to get back to work. Hope you all have a great weekend, and don't forget, The server will be down on Saturday night for an hour or two.

Take care,

Joe

Hello all!

As some of you may have noticed, the server was offline for a little while this evening. I apologize for that, but we were trying to do our part to support Earth Hour by turning off the lights, and just about everything else that uses electricity in our house. We even decided to go a little further by having everything off for two hours tonight instead of one.

It was actually a good idea because it gave us an opportunity to spend some good family time together. We lit some candles, and played some games. We enjoyed it so much that I think we're going to do this once a week from now on.

It was weird not having the computers running in my office. It seemed so eerily quiet. I've grown so accustomed to the constant hum of the fans and disk drives that not hearing them seems odd.

Anyway, in keeping with the spirit of things, I plan to shut the server down once per week on Saturday evenings. It'll be down for somewhere between one and two hours. Don't worry, you won't lose email or anything during that time. Anything that comes in during the outage will be redelivered later in the evening, and will end up in your inbox.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and I hope you'll all understand. In fact, I hope that you'll all participate! Let's try unplugging ourselves once a week. It's good for the family, and ultimately, it's good for the environment.

Take care!

Joe

Hello all.

Today, I turned 37. Yep, I'm getting up there. It was strange because I stopped by the Liquor store tonight, and saw the "you must have been born on or before" sign and it struck me. I turned 21 sixteen years ago! Not a big deal or anything, but it just seems odd because it really does seem like yesterday.

While I'm on the subject of my birthday, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who sent a card, or emailed, or called. It's appreciated! And I'd like to thank Edith for taking me out for a nice dinner at Red Lobster. mmmm.

Moving on to more important news,  Cousin Lois gave birth yesterday!  A baby girl.  Join me in welcoming my fellow Piscean, Brianna LaVelle Jurasek to the world. She was born at 12:30pm on March 13, 2008, was 8lbs, 3oz, and 20" long. I hope to have photos to post soon!  Congrats Lois!

Anyway, I'm gonna go have a drink, watch a movie, and try to enjoy the rest of my birthday.

Take care everyone!

Joe