Friday, November 07, 2008

Movember - Week 1

Well, it has been one week since I changed my image. I am no longer startled when I look in the mirror, but I sometimes think I know the person looking back at me. For those of you who are still not clear on where your money goes, check out their Outcomes page.

Also, I have a MoSpace page on the Movember website, complete with up to date pics. For the click-impaired, here's my mustache in all its glory...NOT! Truth to tell, I'm a little disappointed. I feel like I could have done better by drinking chocolate milk! I'll do better next week. In the meantime, don't punish the Prostate Cancer Foundation for my weak showing. Please donate!


To donate you can either:

  1. Click this link https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1391346&country=us and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
  2. Write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1391346 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Movember - before and after


As promised, here is an updated photo. I have to say I completely underestimated how weird this would be for me.

Friday afternoon, myself and my teammates all took over the public restroom on our floor of the office building we work in. One of our co-workers wanted to witness this historic event, but her gender was an issue. To be as accommodating as possible we left of the bathroom door open while we worked.

The most amusing part of the whole thing occurred when another tenant came to use the facilities. I didn't see the look on his face, but I can imagine his reaction when he saw three guys shaving, two more standing around taking pictures, and a (gasp!) woman in the bathroom. She offered to leave, but I believe we ruined the moment for him. Under similar circumstances I might have even had a case of bashful bladder myself!

Anyway, back to my own reactions to the event. As I said, it was a little bit strange for me. I felt decidedly unsettled, and every time I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I couldn't help thinking "who's that guy?!?" So, please help me cope with this traumatic event by donating to the cause...

To donate you can either:

  1. Click this link https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1391346&country=us and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
  2. Write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1391346 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
For more pics, including a preview of what I might look like at the end of the month, check out the pics of the whole event: http://picasaweb.google.com/wconroy/Movember08#

Friday, October 31, 2008

Movember - no it isn't a type-o...

Raise your hand if you've ever walked for charity. I'm talking about a sponsored walk where you solicit pledges on a per-mile basis and then wake up really early on a Saturday morning and join hundreds of other people pounding the pavement in support of a good cause. I've always felt the act you perform in order to convince people to donate is arbitrary, whether it is walking, jumping ropes, baking, or ... growing a mustache, as long as you put yourself out there and support a worthy cause.

If you haven't heard of the month of Movember, I'm not surprised. I hadn't heard of it either until a coworker invited me to join his team. Movember is a replacement for the month of November, in which for one month, men grow a mustache (or "mo" in Australian slang) to raise money and awareness for men's health issues, specifically, the fight against prostate cancer. The catch is that you have to start with a clean slate!

For me that is a really big deal. For the last 15 years I've been a beard/mustache wearer. My face hasn't seen the light of day since the summer of 1993, shortly after I got my first job out, right out of college. My facial hair is an essential part of my identity. So much so that my wife has never seen me without facial hair!!! She once saw my high school graduation picture and said flatly "that's not my Dave." Last night took clippers to my beard and I have to admit I'm a little traumatized. I don't even know if I remember how to shave.

So here's the pitch. At 2:30PM today (Halloween, 31-Oct-2008), I and my Movember teammates are going to shave our faces clean. Then, we will grow our mo's until the end of the month. All through the month we will take pictures to chart our progress. Since this is mustache only, we are not allowed to grow anything below the chin, although I believe elaborate sideburns are allowed as long as they connect to your 'stache. Please donate to support me.



<--Before the shave...

Donations are tax deducible, I will submit your details and the Movember Foundation will issue you a receipt at the end of the month for donations over $250.00. You can use either credit card or PayPal online. If you prefer to pay offline, I can accept checks and cash and will submit your details to the Movember Foundation.


To Donate

Online:


Offline:

Write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1391346 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401




[Update: 3-Nov-2008] Here's the pics from before and after together.
[Update: 7-Nov-2008] Here's the pic after one week.


Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Going home again

You will all be relieved to know that I get to go home on Wednesday (tomorrow!!!). There is no one in the entire world who will be more relieved than Christie, however. If you've been keeping up on her Daily Ranch blog then you know she has not had it easy. When I get home, I will take the rest of the week off so I can help her get back on her feet. My trip home also coincides with the start of the summer guesting season. Our good friends Karen & Aud are coming out for an unprecedented 20 days, and their son Alex will be with them for at least a week of that. They are really great about pitching in where ever help is needed, so my hope is that Christie can recover pretty easily.

The big news for me is that the next week, I have the opportunity to work from home. My boss agreed to a trial week offsite to see how it goes. So, even though I have to work, I will still be home for a week and a half, which will be the most I've seen Christie since heading off to Chicago in March. I'm so excited I can barely concentrate at work. I'm doing my best though!

Monday, May 12, 2008

You have the right to be annoyed

Now that I've moved back to "the city" I guess I have to deal with attitudes and prejudices held by the public. I'm a firm believer that regardless of what the media says, folks are basically decent. If everyone worked off that assumption I think the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, I found a place in Naperville, IL that doesn't seem to have faith in the common man.

I was going to meet up with a friend of mine to get a free chair. He had a recliner he didn't need, and offered it to me to help furnish my apartment. We agreed on a time, and I headed over to his place on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I called him on my way over, and he was running late, so when I got there, I parked in front of his house, rolled down the window and listened to the radio. A Prairie Home Companion was on NPR so I didn't really mind sitting and waiting.

My friend lives in one of those neighborhoods that is all curvy streets and cul-de-sacs. Very family oriented, with big yards and little traffic. I was facing the entrance to my friend's dead-end when a police car turned down his street. My first thought was that it was nice to know the cops even patrolled little neighborhoods. Then the patrol car accelerated in a manner I can only describe as aggressive, and another patrol car turned into the neighborhood. Somehow I just knew they were there for me.

The faster car pulled around the cul-de-sac and blocked me from behind while the second car parked in the middle of the street blocking me from the front. As I said, I'm not one to think ill of people without cause, but it was clear to me that one of my friend's neighbors had called the cops on me. It was also clear to me why they called the cops. Had I been parked in a shiny BMW or a Hummer they wouldn't have given me a second look. However, I was sitting in my newest pride and joy, a 1994 Nissan Sentra Coupe.

My car is the epitome of Basic Transportation. It is old, has a few rust spots, door dings, and paint chips, and the trunk no longer closes perfectly due to a rear-end collision in the car's recent past. I paid $2,000 cash for this car and was pleased to find that two grand can still buy a decent car that runs well and gets good gas mileage. Just to be clear, this is a nice, older car, not a sh*tbox.

All of this went through my head before the nice officer could approach me. When he did, he asked what I was doing there. I told him I was meeting my friend who was running late, and pointed at his house. He asked for my friend's name and my ID. I provided both, politely. I even offered a copy of my temporary registration for the car, since I had an in-transit tag issued by the state of Montana taped in the window and I could tell the officer was mighty curious about it. He took both and went to the other squad car presumably to find out if I was a dangerous criminal.

While Officer One and Officer Two conferred my friend drove up. He had to negotiate around the cars blocking the road but eventually headed for his driveway. The officers asked him if he knew me and when he confirmed my story, they returned my license and registration, thanked me and departed. As they departed a third squad car pulled into the neighborhood, but after a quick conference with the other officers, Officer Three departed without a glance at me or my friend.

It is moments like these that I'm glad my Momma raised me right. Just as I knew the cops were coming for me, I also knew that whoever called them was peeking through their curtains hoping for a show. I was sorely tempted to shout "are you happy now?!?" or stand in the middle of the cul-de-sac and give a 360 degree one-finger salute. However, due to my good upbringing, I simply went inside with my friend. Besides, good entertainment ain't cheap and I don't work for free.

You may be wondering if I jumped to conclusions, and the truth is we'll never know. However, one point of evidence in my favor was shared with me as my friend and I loaded the recliner into his minivan. Evidently the lady two doors down gives piano lessons and strange cars are often parked on the street with parents waiting to pick of their children. To his knowledge, this is the first time anyone called the cops.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Chapter n+1: A New Adventure

Given the "downturn" or "slowdown" or whatever you want to call it, Christie and I have been increasingly leery of returning to Bank of America. The question quickly became, if not BoA, where? We figured I'd have to move at least temporarily in order to find work. Well, if I'm going to move, it should be somewhere I'm already comfortable, so that means Chicago.

I have a ton of contacts in Chicago, and notification of my intent to relocate brought lots of interesting possibilities. The most interesting was at Sky Road LLC, a software company catering to small to medium sized trading firms and hedge funds. Their business model is to wrap up existing software and vend it as an ASP (Application Service Provider) which means their customers don't have to have a large IT department, like BoA or Citadel. The best thing about Sky Road is that I already knew 5 of the 20 employees, so I felt confident I would fit in. Also, with my 10+ years working on financial software they felt confident in my abilities.

Now it is the beginning of my third week at Sky Road. I am staying in an extended stay-type hotel and getting to and from work using their shuttle. I have been looking for apartments and found a nice place 1.3 miles away from the office. My next big thing will be buying a car. I figure we can get a halfway decent car for a few thousand dollars. My commute is short, and beyond work, I just need to get groceries and maybe go to a movie now and then.

At work, I definitely jumped right into the deep end, but was pleased to discover I am a good swimmer. My experience working for banks and hedge funds has already paid dividends because I understand what is being asked of me and can accurately discourse on many topics. My first task is a big one, slated to take 6-8 weeks. I understand how to do this sort of thing, but the challenge before me is to figure out how Sky Road does this sort of thing so that I don't have to throw away my first effort, or heaven forbid, reinvent the wheel.

Christie is holding up pretty well at the ranch. We've got people helping with the feeding right now so she doesn't have to do too much on a given day. It is my hope she can use some of this time to recuperate from the long and difficult winter. Spring is around the corner and with it comes foaling season. Christie has a long list of guests slated to visit this summer, so she will rarely have to handle the ranch all alone.

We've been apart like this before, but during the year I lived in Chicago before working remotely from the ranch, I was able to travel home every other weekend. This time around money is a little tighter so we are jumping into this new adventure not knowing how it will work. One thing I do know, even with so many miles between us, we will figure it out together, and that makes all the difference.

Friday, February 29, 2008

I'm still standing

Hello dear readers. I haven't been ignoring you (much) I have just been kinda busy being unemployed. They say that looking for work is a full time job. Well, "they" don't know the half of it. By the time you sleep until 10am, eat breakfast, and check your e-mail, it is time for lunch. And, if lunch is at all strenuous, an afternoon nap ensues. It is a good day when I can send out one or two job applications, and I think you know not every day is a good day.

OK, I'll let you off the hook, I'm not really just a shiftless layabout, I'm much, much more. In addition to being a shiftless layabout, I'm also a full time ranch hand right now. If you ask me, and I think you did, or you wouldn't be reading my blog, it could not have come at a better time. Christie didn't get her usual boost in heath this summer, so going into the winter, her tank was running low. When I got laid off, she could barely manage one of the two daily feedings by herself, and none of the other things, like pumping water into tanks or putting out supplements. While I have been doing my fair share of laying-about, I have also been able to take over most of the day-to-day ranch chores.

This week we replaced "most" with "all" as Christie went to Iowa to help out her cousin. I'm doing all the feeding, watering, and supplementing by myself right now. Luckily, all of the new fencing is holding up quite well, so breakouts have been a minimum. There's a weak spot between the Boys and Mamas herds, and some of the more adventurous horses, like Sahara and Ghost are doing some mingling. I'll probably have to trudge out there at some point and make a temporary repair, but it isn't too urgent right now.

On the job front, a couple of interesting possibilities exist, but I don't want to count chickens before they hatch or anything. (Actually, I've never been a fan of counting chickens so I may have a bias.) Anyway, I'll be sure to let you all know if anything "hatches".

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Yo Yo Me

I am a human yo-yo, and Bank of America is the inept kid who just bought me at the dollar store.

My contract was to end with 2007, but they managed to extend it for 2 months. Who looks a gift horse in the mouth? Well, on Wednesday the 30th I was informed that Thursday the 31st would be my last day. That's right, 24 hours notice. Very nice. Last year I was ticked because they only gave me 9 days notice. If I'm fallible enough to sign on with them again, I will probably be told after the fact, like "ok, Dave, your contract expired last Tuesday, don't bother filling out a timecard for this week..."

The truth is that I'm not really bitter. When I signed on with the group I worked for in 2007, they told me they only had funding until the end of the year. When they extended it two extra month, it was my hope that would bridge me over into the new budget season so I could find another group. This loss of a month of work is going to hurt, but I can't say I didn't see it coming.

If they come back with another contract in a few weeks, I will probably take it, because working from home allows me to be here when Christie needs me. In the meantime, if any of you out there need a slightly used (aka experienced) Java developer, let me know.

As for toy metaphors, in 2008, I am going to strive to be a Slinky. I will walk down stairs, alone or in pairs. I don't know what that means metaphorically speaking, but you have to admit that making a slinkety sound has its perks.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Let there be heat

Yesterday our wood stove conked out. It filled the house with smoke instead of sending it up the chimney. Smoke was even oozing (can smoke ooze?) out of every little crack and crevice in the stove. It wasn't heating, and we were quickly reduced to opening doors and windows to vent the place. Did I mention it got down to negative 30 degrees up here last night? Ole' Murphy was prosecuting us to the full extent of his law, I can tell you that.

We got a roaring fire going in the fireplace, which helped. Our fireplace has a blower built in so that once the firebox gets heated, warm air can be circulated. It was really nice within about 5' of the fireplace, and the rest of the house stayed just above 50 degrees. We figured it was also a great time to run the self clean cycle on our oven (500 degrees for three hours or so).

Once we had a little heat in the place we tried to tackle the stove. It just started smoking really bad, do we have a green log in there? We took all the burning wood out of it and threw it in the snow outside. Nope, smoke still coming into the house. There's a lot of ash in there, maybe it would breathe better if we cleaned it out. I dug a trench in a snow bank and took 8 big buckets-full of ash out. Nope, still too smoky. Ah, there is a door for removing the ash that falls down the chimney. Took another bucket of ash from there. Nope, still smoky. Well, let's sleep on it, thank goodness for down comforters.

At 5AM this morning, we were awake and decided to try using the shop vac to clean out the horizontal portion of the chimney that goes out the back of the stove. (To do this, I had to get the generator to start in -30 degrees and then find the shop vac out in the garage. Brrrr!!!!) There was about an inch of ash there, but removing it didn't fix anything. However, while shining a light around in there, I saw that there was no opening in the back for the smoke to go up. I got a pole and tested this and confirmed that there seemed to be a blockage.

At 8:01AM we started calling chimney sweeps. It must be the off season for them because of the 4 in the phone book, two were out of town. One was too far away and didn't want to drive all the way up here, but the 4th guy was willing. He got here as the sun came out blazing brightly in complete defiance of the temperature. He agreed that there appeared to be a blockage and hopped up onto the roof with his brushes and poles. There was quite a bit of accumulated ash and creosote in the chimney, so it needed cleaning, for sure. However, at a certain point, his brush got stuck. He hit something metal. A glance inside the wood stove revealed he was banging on the horizontal pipe from above. He figured out that the horizontal pipe had somehow gotten pushed back into the chimney too far and had become closed off by the back wall of the chimney. It is a good thing he was a small man, for he was able to climb halfway into our stove and get a vicegrip clamped onto the pipe. He pulled it out a ways and lit a piece of paper. The smoke went up!!!

Now we have a very clean wood stove and chimney and a nice warm fire going. We stole the big coals out of the fireplace to jump-start the wood stove and now it is warming up in here. My nose is still cold, but there is no longer any frost on my window. We were able to settle out of court with Murphy for about $150, which could have been much worse.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Maybe it'll work THIS time...

When will I ever learn? I keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. I'm going to state a bit of wisdom that you can all feel free to quote back to me until I learn my lesson. Here it is:
If you think you might need tire chains, then you do need tire chains.
Wow, when I say it like that it makes so much sense. Of course, if someone had said that to me yesterday, I would probably have dismissed it as hogwash.

Yesterday Christie had to take Cordova (Cory) to town to meet a transport truck. Cory is going to live with some very nice people in Colorado Springs. He was a champ, he even waded through a snow drift to squeeze into the trailer because I backed it into a corner. Trust me, for a half-Arab yearling, that is downright amazing.

I'm sure some of you are wondering why the trailer was parked awkwardly. I'll tell you outright it was because I was too tired to care. But I get ahead of myself. Let's backtrack 4 hours to the time when Christie sweetly asked, "Honey, could you help me hook up the trailer?" I left my desk, knowing I would be right back to work with none the wiser.

We hooked up the trailer as snow fell softly, giving the world a fuzzy aspect. We decided, smartly I thought, to pull the trailer up to the top of the driveway before adding the weight of a horse. I took a run at it, and almost made it too. The truck made it past the steep part, but the trailer didn't and I started to spin. OK, no problem, I'll just back up and a take another run at it, with a little more speed I won't get stuck. Evidently I left my mental capacity in my other briefs, because I managed to back the trailer straight down the driveway, and into our yard. The driveway turned, I didn't, the rest is history.

About this time, I realized it would have been good to have tire chains. So, we decided to put them on. This was a terrible time to try to locate the chains we hadn't used since last winter. Well, we couldn't find them in our garage, but we did find the chains for the Dodge (our ranch truck). These were a little too big for the Chevy, but we decided that with enough bungee cords anything will fit. With some digging, we got the chains around the tires, latched and tightened them. I got back in the truck and pulled the trailer about 6". While I didn't manage to get the trailer back up onto the driveway, I did dig a pair of impressive holes with the back tires.

The chains were slipping and starting to come off the tires, one link snapped under the stress. Since it was clear the Dodge's chains weren't going to work for the Chevy, we decided to use the Dodge. We unhooked the trailer from the Chevy, drove it out of the holes it dug, and took off the chains. Then we repaired the broken link and installed the chains on the Dodge. This was all around much easier, since the chains were meant to fit these tires and it didn't hurt that the Dodge was parked on a nice flat, level section of our plowed driveway.

With chains properly attached, I backed up the Dodge to the trailer and hitched it up. Chains aren't a cure all for bad traction, but they help a lot. After several times moving the trailer a few feet, I managed to get turned back onto the driveway. By then, the trailer and I were pointing downhill instead of up, but that could be remedied. I went down by the barn and turned around. Then, with a mighty roar, the Dodge, the trailer, and I went tearing up the driveway ... literally. Snow was flying everywhere, from the sky and from the tires. When I got to the steep part I didn't hesitate and we made it up onto the road. (I parked the truck and trailer in our turnout, and that is when I backed the trailer into a snow drift.)

Wow, I thought, that was much easier with chains.
If you think you might need tire chains, then you do need tire chains.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

The year is dead, long live the year

New Year's has never really had much meaning for me. It was simply another holiday from work. This year, however, I see the new year in a whole new light. As 2007 was very rough on Christie and I, I see 2008 as an opportunity. This year will be a year of healing for us, a time to get back on our feet and recover from all the shocks of 2007.

What is more, I have the strong feeling that 2008 is going to be a great year for us. For the first time in years we are entering the new year free of debt. Well, there's still the mortgage and the car payment, but everyone has those. I'm talking about unsecured debt, like medical bills and credit cards. For the first time in a long time, none of that is hanging over our heads, and I blessed that we are so fortunate. It was worth the hardship.


In my last post, the glass was definitely half empty. I'm not so manic as to declare it is now half full, let us just say there is water in the glass. It is what it is. Could we have more personal and family emergencies in 2008? Of course. Are we in a better place to handle them when they arise? I think we are.

I wish everyone a safe and gentle 2008.