Glass Panes That Separate

Tomorrow, I embark on a new journey. I’ve been working at an office supply shop doing computer and network service for the last few months. It’s been fun, but there’s just been something missing. My coworkers are great (they’ll probably never read this). I’ll miss Tom, Jeremy, and even April too. Denny…not so much. Actually, I go to church with him, so it would be tough to miss him when I still see him.

My new job will be as Technology Coordinator at DCC, our local community college. I’d give you a link to their website, but I don’t want anyone to see it yet; at least not until after I’ve had a chance to clean it up a bit. I’m pretty excited, as there will be a lot more of what I like to do there, but most importantly, its where I believe God wants me to be right now. I can’t ask for anything more than that (and I won’t).

So, farewell, old job. Hello, new job!

Well, it’s been a couple weeks since I started my new job, and even longer since I wrote my last real blog post. The new job has been fun, with a few new challenges, and lots of new software to learn about. We had rented a small house originally that turned out to be a bust. The landlords don’t keep the place up real well, and aren’t too picky about who they let in, so it had a lovely cigarette smoke smell, and several other quirks here and there. At any rate, they were gracious enough to let us out of the lease, since our eyes were burning, and my wife wasn’t even able to spend the night there due to associated sinus problems.
Since then, things have been looking up. Amanda got a job at a flower shop last week, and today was her first day. We also received an offer on our house, which puts us in the same boat as my cousin, oddly enough. It was kind of funny to read her post, and say, hey, me too! At any rate, it’s very encouraging to have received an offer on the house, and there has been a lot more interest in it than we really expected, which is very nice.

February 29 will be my last day at Trinity Bible College. We’re finally moving out of Ellendale, and going to my hometown, Glendive, MT. I’ve accepted a position at BOSS Office Products as a Computer/Network Technician where I’ll essentially be a computer tech and consultant for small businesses and schools and such. I’m a bit sad to be leaving my job here, but I’m a lot excited for this new opportunity and can’t wait until March.

I’ve been here, there, and everywhere. Back in August we went to western Montana, and camped out a couple days for our honeymoon. It was absolutely gorgeous there, and I think I have some photos around here somewhere. I’ll have to post those later. On the way back, we got a call from a hospital in Sidney. They offered me a job, but I declined it. I might be crazy, but I just didn’t feel right about the job.
School’s back in full swing, and work has been nuts. Lots of new people to explain the same old stuff to. “Here’s your password for the eightieth time, and no, you can’t change it.” Otherwise, there’s been lots of fun. We’ve got a new feature to be added to the college website soon, and I’ll give you a sneak preview. It’s a lot of fun, and you’ll get an extra laugh if you’ve actually been to Trinity.
In other awesome news, Apple just released the iPod Touch, which is fantastic. I really want one. Really. I’ve never been big on mp3 players, as I had one once, and only ever used it on long road trips. It also didn’t help that it went through 4 AA batteries in 2 hours. Ouch. But this one does more than music. Of course, it does video, but it also has built-in wireless, so you can surf the net, browse Youtube, or even shop the iTunes store and buy music right to your iPod. It also has a few useful tools like a Calendar and Contacts.

Some days, I look back and go, “did I get anything done today?” So here’s me recording for the world what I did today. You can stop reading now, because it’s going to be really boring. I promise. Really.

1. Read from I Chronicles
2. Installed Ubuntu ‘Feisty Fawn’ on a server (yikes)
3. Updated three other Ubuntu servers (web, mail, and DNS/DHCP)
4. Took Amanda to work
5. Pulled a VGA cable and some Audio cables in the new preaching lab
6. Gave a friend some references on HTML and CSS
7. Started installing Gnome on my Gentoo VM
8. Created a PDF from a Word document for Justin
9. Made copies for Amanda
10. Helped with the EHS play tryouts
11. Found out the NORCO DS-1220 just needs proper drivers for linux
12. Used too many acronyms
13. Debated Vista with Mike Hume (he’s going to try Ubuntu first)
14. Picked up Amanda and took her home
15. Made burritos for dinner…yum
16. ‘Fixed’ a login problem with empower
17. Unblocked a website for Steve
18. Found more errors in the ‘proxy’ blacklist from urlblacklist.com
19. Traced the snack shop phone line to the pedestal (it stops there)
20. Re-punched-down said phone line
21. Gave up on said phone line until more snow melts
22. Applied DST patch to four Windows 2000 servers
23. Re-installed the NORCO DS-1220 on blackhole
24. Upgraded a couple packages on my work computer
25. Fed fish (three times)
26. Gave guineas more food and hay
27. Finished this list

This is a reminder to myself, and dissemination of ‘general knowledge’. If you run linux, and you want to change the resolution that your computer displays the console on, this is for you. Read more

I sent this email recently to urlblacklist.com and have received no response. Obviously, I don’t have to use their service, no one is forcing me into anything here, but I feel their current and potential customers have a right to know what’s going on. Read more

A while ago, Amanda’s dad gave us a whole bunch of plants for our new office. Sadly, some of them have died, since the move was delayed for something like two months. However, we are now in our new office, and the plants will do better (that’s the plan, although some of them don’t seem to be on board with the plan). The office looks like this:

Here’s our orange tree that is blooming like crazy (not sure if 8 counts as crazy, unless you’re playing cards):

And the rest of the plants (some of them aren’t doing so great):

That’s the amount of time that has passed since I last updated my site. Way TOO long, if you ask me, which none of you did. Life is progressing, ever rapidly, and I’ve obviously been busy. Busy doing what?

• pulling cable in the new building (the LLHSLC)
  • network
  • television
  • phone
• learning all the ins and outs of our new records software at the school
  • setting up the web interface
  • fixing permissions for people
  • giving them accounts so that they have permissions in the first place
  • helping people figure out how to do things they were trained to do (even if I wasn’t trained at all for that task)
• helping Amanda with the Ellendale High School play (lighting, sound, set, etc.)
  • every school should have a CD player hooked up to their sound system (we’re not in the 80’s anymore)
• learning Perl
• it’s a programming language
• and I already wrote my first useful program
• you can do really crazy, non-useful stuff with it

I noticed today, that my last post was from July 4th. I also noticed that it said nothing about fireworks. I love fireworks. Just thought you all should know that. There’s just something about blowing things up, and the anticipation of seeing what comes next. We went to a show, and then had a few youth over and put on our own show. The one we watched was pretty cool, but doing your own is a whole lot more fun. I’ll have some pics of the one we went to shortly.