Who….is lis? I know TWD. I know. CDT. I know Greg et al…and Dianne…and me. But, who is the “lis” contributor?

Halt!

Who goes there?

Advance and be recognized!

Or is this Greg’s better half (the one we saw in the picture)…and the poor girl dropped a vowel off of her name? (I’ve heard that’s all the rage…all the kids are doing it…)

Last Saturday, Tad Day performed at the Region Band Clinic as probably the youngest band member of the Junior Band, therefore as the yougnest band member of the entire 400 member clinic. His feet didn’t touch the floor as he sat in rehearsal, so he had to put them on his case, when he wasn’t swinging them to keep time. He did great! Gramma and Grammpa got to host him and a few of his buddies at the TR Hotel and Pancake House, thanks to them as well. Tad had this to say after the concert, where he played princile 2nd trumpet…
“Daddy, I sight read 1st trumpet on the concert!”
“What? How did that happen?”
“They passed out the wrong folders!”
“Did you tell the director?”
“No, I WANTED to play 1st” (Tad had told me all weekend that NEXT year , he would be first, not 2nd trumpet) “It was EASY”

Tad is now an official trumpet player with a developing ego and a “I want to be first mentality” And he ISN’T really a trumpet player because he summed up his first Honor Band experience by declaring that he would like to go back again becasue he had made a new friend. Cool.

By the way, the photo is Tad stealing 2nd. We have tried, but he continues to steal. I feel so unprepared to be a parent sometimes

Greetings to all. Hopefully the youngest female sibling will soon be a homeowner. We THINK these doofus folks in Easley are gonna accept our umpteenth offer. Bill’s been haggling over the extra 50 cents on the homeowner’s warranty, but I think everyone’s happy now. We should know for sure tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you tomorrow if it works, but since I don’t get to the computer near as often as I used to, I probably won’t blog for awhile. So blog IS a verb? Who knows. What great fun this can be. More to follow from Travelers Rest’s younger generation.

If one posts on here…is one a “blogger”?

Or, would one be considered a “bloggist”?

Is “blogging” a verb? Or, is it an adjective…as in…I worked on a blogging post this this afternoon?

Or, perhaps…it’s a noun…in the “thing” category of nouns.

Larry the blogger, in attempt to be a world class bloggist, practiced his blogging posts so that he could create his first blog.

Maybe it’s all of the above.

Larry

Yep. It is.

I’m referring, of course, to the feeling that you get when a number of plans that have been physically, mentally, and emotionally draining you for the last 12-18 months suddenly fall into place and you can actually see yourself getting things done that you were beginning to think would never get done.

About 20 minutes ago, I took a server offline that was tying up four IP addresses that I desperately need in order to bring up other servers. This project (that of getting rid of that server) actually began over two years ago, when the server was “loaned” to us by an application vendor. Several months ago, I moved all the users of that server onto a load balancer spread across 4 other servers, and we immediately ran into problems. Baby steps. Over the last 4-5 weeks, I’ve addressed all of those problems and I was able to finally turn off the server today.

This morning, I shut down three other servers which had been holding up my domain migration for the last 30 months. I had planned to do it last Friday – after fighting with a very stubborn application for close to a year – but I had to put it off because on WEDNESDAY, one more problem popped up, which took me three days to figure out.

But that puppy’s shut down now. And as soon as I was able to shut IT down, I could also shut down the final two servers in the domain, which were doing nothing other than supporting the problem child.

I realize that this all probably means next to nothing to any of you, so I’ll just put it this way: I FINISHED SOME MAJOR PROJECTS TODAY.

Other than that, life is pretty much the same. I rearranged my living room yesterday. Spent the weekend watching a number of movies with a friend (saw “The Man”, ” Madagascar” and “Elizabethtown” and liked all of them).

Last night I at a frisco melt at Steak and Shake. Helpful hint: don’t waste your time. They look really good on paper, but they’re pretty bland.

On Saturday, I had a steak sandwich at Waffle House. See above.

I’m trying – and getting close – to run my website on a machine at my house, thereby getting rid of the need for a webhost (I currently use GoDaddy.com, and my site is currently in the throes of death. GoDaddy.com apparently puts about 10,000 websites on each of their shared servers and mine needs more resources than that. Unfortunately, putting it on a dedicated server is expensive, which is why I’m trying to run it out of the house).

I was hopeful that Mom and Dad were going to visit ye olde Duluthe this weekend, but I’m told that their grandkids did something amazing musically and I came in second. Eh bien. It’s probably a good thing because my house is a disgusting mess. You know the scene: dishes in the sink from a meal that I had sometime around Thanksgiving. Small trees and something resembling living velour growing on my rugs. Cat vomit on the ceiling. Unrecognizable stuff in the refrigerator that could probably be used as insulation in a nuclear submarine. A string of dirty clothes beginning in my bedroom, running down the stairs, through the dining room, out the kitchen window, and culminating somewhere east of Orlando.

I’m talking messy.

But, I may have it cleaned up by this weekend. Thinking about having a friend over for either movies (if it’s cold) or grilling stuff on the deck (if it’s warm). That should induce me to clean up a bit. Or at least buy blindfolds.

So. You’re all caught up now. I believe I’ll go pee.

TWD

I, Greg, do hereby reject the notion that I am a thinking kind of guy. Having that kind of title brings on undue stress and expectations that I am not ready to have a part of my life.

However, I hope everyone will figure this out, and it might be fun to be able to look at and enjoy as a big group!

By the way, isn’t my wife just incredible looking!?

I rock and stuff.

Hey ya’ll.

Greg, being a thinking kind of guy, came up with the idea that we should have an All-Day blog. One that everybody can add to, comment on, post pictures in, and various other phrases that all end with prepositions.

Being the helpful lad that I am, I set one up.

Have fun.

No really.

I am.

They’re on about every 12 seconds. On every channel.

At any rate, my experiment with the electric heaters was a qualified success. I relented and turned on the gas after a week – mainly to keep my pipes from freezing. Set it at 55 degrees and let the heaters go crazy whenever I was in the house.

My gas bill dropped to $180. My electric went up $11. So I’ll call it a savings. Not ENOUGH, mind you, but a savings nonetheless.

On the job front, it appears that I’ve dodged the bullet again. My affiliate’s IT department was declared exempt from the layoffs – at least for now – because of a major project that we’ve been working on for the last 18 months. In truth, I don’t have a great deal to do with it, but I’m not going to tell anyone.

Watched the Superbowl the other day. Decent game. Then I played football on my PS2 and won yet another national championship. My current winning streak is 119 games or something. I really need to get out more.

My blood pressure has reached its highest levels ever, prompting my doctor to give me stern looks and make me keep a diary of what it is for the next 6 weeks. Yay.

My website continues to run terribly slowly, and I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll have to change hosts again in the near future. Waiting for my bonus to come through before I do that.

Jenny did my taxes last week (she LIKES doing them!), and it looks like I’ll get enough of a refund to take a decent chunk out of what’s remaining on my car (I know, Mom. I didn’t do it last year. I paid credit cards instead).

Started playing around with ASP.NET last week. Pretty cool little coding engine. I might try to put it to some use at some point.

I’m hungry.

And that’s that. I guess I should go buy something for Valentine’s Day now.

I got my natural gas bill a few days ago. The previous one was $70. This one was $240.

I paid it. Then I turned my heat off. Not down. OFF. Then I bought three electric heaters. Ran one in my bedroom last night and was relatively comfortable. When I came downstairs this morning, it was 51 degrees in my living room.

I spent the week after Christmas with Cy and T in their Vermont home. It was 65 in their house with the heat turned off. What’s up with that?

But hey. “Rudy” is on television this morning, so I’m happy. I really need to buy that DVD. It’s a good football fix during the offseason. So is my Playstation. I’m currently the head coach of the LSU Tigers in my third season of “Dynasty” play. During season 1, I coached Furman University, had an 11-1 record, beat LSU in the Sugar Bowl, and my QB won the Heisman. I was immediately offered a job with Washington, which I took.

In season two, my Huskies won the mythical national championship, beating Georgia in the Rose Bowl by a score of 246-6. My halfback won the Heisman.

This season, I’m undefeated with an average win margin of over 100 points. My wide receiver is in the driver’s seat for the Heisman.

I said “mythical” national championship because the I-A division of college football doesn’t really have one. They just get voted in. In I-AA, it’s different. There’s a 16-team playoff, which – if you’ve read any of my previous posts – should be somewhat familiar to you. My last entry here was written the week prior to Furman’s game at Appalachian State.

True to all of the games between those teams over the last several years, this one was a nail-biter. It ended somewhat controversially when Furman’s QB fumbled the ball in the last minute of the game while driving for what would have been the winning score. Replays showed pretty clearly that the fumble was a forward pass. Them’s the breaks. Appalachian State went on to win the championship the following week. Furman went home to start planning for next year. Between then and now, I’ve got 9 months of watching football movies and playing playstation.

And, of course, going to a bowl-a-thon (to raise money for the athletics programs) next month.

BellSouth announced just before Christmas (in their best Grinch voice) that they’ll be laying off 1,500 more management employees between February and April. For those of you unfamiliar with my job history over the last 15 years, it goes something like this:

1990: Quit job in Greenville, moved to Atlanta, started temping.
1991: Hired on full-time with NYNEX.
1992: NYNEX acquired by ComputerLand, massive layoffs follow. I survived.
1993: ComputerLand sells off most franchises, becomes Vanstar. Massive layoffs follow. I survivied.
1994: Quit Vanstar. Began contracting. First job with BellSouth. Hated it so much, I swore I’d never work for them again.
1997: Convinced by my boss to take “a very short-term” gig with BellSouth (1 week). After that, I went on to Coca-Cola for 6 months. During that time, BellSouth twice called me to offer me my current job. I turned them down. The third time the job was offered – at a substantial pay raise – I took it.
2000 – BellSouth puts emphasis on DSL, cutting my affiliate (cable TV) with every conceivable cutting tool. In 3 months, we went from 1800 employees to 250. I survived.
2002 – BellSouth reacts like every other company after 9/11, beginning several rounds of massive layoffs. I survived.
2003 – More layoffs. I survived.

I think the target’s on my back this time around. I’ll be holding my breath for the next few months. I’m not overly concerned. I’ve made tentative plans for how to handle things should the axe fall, and my boss keeps insisting that I’m safe – although I may end up working for a different affiliate. But if I *am* shown the door, I’m ready to start over again. This time at 40 years old instead of 25. Maybe I can do it again when I’m 55!

So now everyone should be fairly caught up on my life. Hope you all have a great 2006!

TWD