Catching back up

I've totally been slacking in the posts department lately. Things at work and at home have kept me so busy I haven't had time to sleep, let alone post to the blog. Here's the skinny on what I've been up to.

The new site for the Navy has been up and running since Friday. I only had one error report and it was extremely simple. Turns out the country code for Norway is NO and my code doesn't like that.....who knew? Having this site go live successfully is a HUGE weight off my shoulders. Everyone on the government side and my company's side seems very happy, which makes me very happy. Now I'm moving back to my AIR project that I haven't touched since May.

I'm also working on getting all the new servers set up in the office. Some of them are mine, most of them are Yancy's. We have about 5 more to set up. Yancy has been installing operating systems on them while I've been making Ethernet cables for the boxes and the new IP KVM. It keeps me here kinda late sometimes.

At home I'm preparing for some pretty major renovation work. My home was built in 1920 and it's beginning to show its age. The outside isn't bad, mainly due to a new roof, fresh coat of paint, and new windows. The inside, however, has old horse hair plaster on the walls and much of it is either patched up poorly by previous owners or just cracking and falling down. Luckily I was blessed with some great mechanical and construction ability, which I probably get from my Father the home builder, so I'm doing the work myself instead of paying a contractor. I also have some friends who are electricians willing to help out. With the help of my friends and family I know things will go great. I spent most of Sunday down at Home Depot pricing out drywall, joint compound, insulation, romex and all the other goodies I will need to renovate the upstairs. I'm going to complete the upstairs area first and then move downstairs probably next year. The third floor was finished by a previous owner (poorly), but I'm going to leave that alone for now. Soon enough that area will become a darkroom for my wife. My goal for now is to complete at least one room quickly so I have a place to sleep upstairs. I'll be using my dining room for a bedroom for a while, but I'll be needing that for the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners we always host for our family.

The VW is on the fritz too. My battery keeps dying. I think it's a combination of a bad cell in the battery and the alternator beginning to go. It's an original factory Motorola alternator from 1973.....it owes me nothing. On top of that I'm beginning to lose compression on the #4 cylinder due to a head stud pulling from the block AND the steering is so loose now it's terrifying to drive in the rain. When you drive on wet roads the car starts to sway back and forth until you think you're going to spin around. I think at this point I'm going to rebuild the front end and "tone down" the drag racing engine I'm building for street use. I figure I can put my racing transmission in there too and just deal with the change in gear ratios. Either way, it will still be a bit of a sleeper.

Well, that's it. I say that like that's not enough. I'll try to be on top of my blog a little more now that things have leveled off a bit. Thanks for reading!