New Look, New Feel

Well, it’s done, for better or worse. The look and feel of the last three years has been replaced with a more “me” feel, or at least as close to how I feel as I can relay through some CSS code and imagery. I hope you’ll take a moment to share you thoughts on the poll (to the right). I’m not sure if this is the final new look or just the newest look for now, but it was time for a change. The old site was stagnating and uninspiring. At least this feels… brighter.

I’ve added the navigation to the top to make it easy for those who want to communicate with me. If you so choose you can easily get to my Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, work web site, photos, and whatever else I can eventually think to add that people might want to see. The most common request lately is the photos. I’ve switched to Flickr over these last few months and am about 65% through the uploads, currently at around 8,000 photos. The link takes you straight to the Collections section. If you’re looking for photos from Christmas, they’ll be in an album under Special Events. Conversely, if you want to find photos tagged of yourself, look in the Friends collection. Any friends that I have a substantial amount of photos of will be there. You can always just search my photostream for your name; you truly never know what you’re gonna find.  I should note that I’ve purposefully not tagged or included anything from the family history section in the other sections yet. I’m going to wait until all the photos are scanned first and then just waste an entire day trying to tag them all at once.

New Thoughts

I’ve been in one of those get to know myself moods for awhile now, finding out again what I want in life, thinking how to get there, determining what is important to me and what’s not. I’ve determined that of all the things I miss, I miss the country side of me the most. That’s not really the right word, but the word doesn’t come to mind at the moment. I’m not talking about pickup trucks and handguns, though those are nice too. I miss the outdoorsman I used to be. I miss working with my hands, being outside in the cold of the early morning while the frigid air pulls the heat from my firmly held coffee cup. I miss the smell of nature when the sun comes up in the morning. The grass has a decidedly cleaner smell in the early morning. I miss having my dog around my feet, searching and huffing at the scents and the sounds that are unique to each morning.

My working life is that of a tech-head. That’s not going to change unless I have a mid-life crisis, sell the business, go in debt for a red convertible, and become an hard rock roadie. Considering the unlikelihood of that course of events in my near future, I’m pretty much stuck as a tech head, a geek, computer-nerd, what have you…  Anyone that knows me knows I really don’t fit the geek mold, but it’s my career path, so I embrace it.

Spending all that time each week at work and again at home behind the computer is starting to get to me. I probably spend 12+ hours per day on the computer, not because I want to necessarily. Even on the days I get to go out and work in the field, I still have to come back to the office or my home-office and play administrative catch-up because no one in my office knows how to invoice, prepare estimates, follow-up with customers, take out the trash, break down cardboard boxes, remember to pay the bills, or anything else remotely related to the actual running of a business. I’ve got the greatest team in the world when it comes to implementation,but the worst possible team when it comes to follow-up…

So, putting all this together into what makes up my average day just really leaves me longing to be able to DO something with the little free time I do have. I want a barn.. not a nice high-tech office ( I already have one of those), but a tobacco-board barn with a wood floor and lights that are strung against the roof trusses with a switch on the wall. I want table-saws and band-saws, my hand tools, a plywood work bench to craft on, and then I want an old coffee pot in the corner and an old radio with no cd player, iPod hookup, and nothing but an old pair of stereo speakers in those huge unwieldy old-style box cases. I want to smell saw-dust with the lightest hint of turpentine from where I left my paint brushes drying the day before. I want a wood burning stove that I have to cut wood for myself to have heat. I want to sit for hours in my free time and on weekends and build patio furniture, or bird houses, or new cabinets as I get the money.

What I really want is a horse in a stall outside, a little property to run him on, and a labrador retriever to keep us company while I feed up in the mornings and evenings.

I spend so much time Doing what I do for a living that I’m becoming what I do, not what I want to be. I don’t know how to fix it yet, but I do know that its becoming an ever increasing desire, so much that I don’t stop thinking about it much anymore. I’m not looking to change who I am, just to get a little bit of “me” back into my life, just enough that I can appreciate the high-tech side of my life and then come home to the low-tech relaxation that you can only get from working with your hands.

 

Holidays

 

I should take a moment to say Merry Christmas to every one while I’m at it. I really DO wish everyone a very very Merry Christmas, though I haven’t been in much of the Christmas spirit this year myself. I’m not sure if it’s just because money is tight or other reasons altogether. I’m not a humbug by any means, but I’m not my usual holiday self. I’m usually that guy that’s playing Christmas songs the day after Thanksgiving and only stop at New Years because my friends threaten to break my iPod if I don’t. This year I’ve played two Christmas songs, and neither all the way through to the end. I’m just not Christmasy this year…  It seems I’m not alone in that though. There’s been a run of the mill blah attitude with lots of people this year. Maybe its the economy. Maybe its the weather. I dunno. I just want it to go away and to cheer up and be uber-holiday-spirit-man again like usual.

Well, I think I’m gonna shower and go to the office for a bit and check on things there. I’ll write more soon. Merry Christmas Everyone!

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