Happy Birthday Mom!

Was thumbing through some pictures and thought that I should share with the world. I love you!

Little Man getting a Little bigger!

Had a great time hangin with friends at the Blanchette's. A little football! A little grillin. A little birthday cake. A Lot of Fun!!
Happy Birthday Month Son! Love you!!

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your "Earlobes"

Today my little princess decided that she wanted to get her ears pierced. This was a big day for both her and Mom. She was super excited and was super brave, even when it pinched. She is mostly excited about having an additional place to bling!

You look beautiful Sweet Heart! I love you!

BIM-erific

Today my friends and I from the design group are finishing up three days training on some software called Revit. Revit is Autodesk's Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. This type of software is what CAD has evolved into. In short, you draw buildings in 3d vs. 2d. A more detailed explanation would be that BIM is a new Computer Aided Design (CAD) paradigm that allows for intelligent, 3D and parametric object-based design. In this way, Revit provides full bi-directional associativity. A change anywhere is a change everywhere, instantly, with no user interaction to manually update any view. A BIM model contains the building's full life cycle, from concept to construction to decommissioning.

With all that said, I am excited about incorporating this fun technology into the design group.

Deck Project Pictures

Here a few fun pictures from my weekend.

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Get your own

Deck the Yard with Beams & Joists!

What a day! Here is a quick update on the deck.

Most of the framing is complete. We will be working on the steps and railing tomorrow.
I can't begin to thank Marsha and Ron enough! Because of their incredible generosity, in the form of time and skills, this project is framed to succeed!
Check back later for more updates.

The Deck...

I have a feeling that my deck is not going to go as planned. Ignorance and my tendency to procrastinate have pushed this project back. I am just now submitting the proper plans to the city for a permit. That's kinda a messed up process. You must submit plans to show that you meet city code, but you only find out what the code is after you submit and get it sent back. The requirements are not listed anywhere easy to find. My Goodness! I would hate to have information like that just floating around on the Internet for just any law abiding citizen to find!!!
O.K. I'm done venting. With all that said, I am still hoping to make progress this week. It will be so very nice to finally have a place to relax in our back yard. It just doesn't look like it will happen for my birthday.

I will keep you posted.

Focusing in on a Great Website

Just wanted to take a minute and recommend an awesome website. If you know me, you probably know that I am passionate about photography (passionate, not good at). I found this site; Steve’s Digicams, a few years ago when I was looking for a new digital camera and immediately added it to my favorites! If you are in the market for a new digital camera, Steve’s Digicams is a tremendous resource. The reviews section of this site provides a plethora of information about nearly every make and model of digital cameras plus there is a “Steve’s Conclusion” page that offers the author’s professional opinion. This site is certainly worth bookmarking. Enjoy!

Congratulations Kaitlyn!

I had the privilege of attending Kaitlyn’s Pre-School Graduation last night. What an event! Kaitlyn and her class did an outstanding job demonstrating a few of the skills that they have learned during the last year. Kaitlyn did an exceptional job counting to one hundred in Spanish. As the rest of her class started to forget the next number, Kaitlyn took the lead and belted each number confidently. We were so proud.

Great Job Kaitlyn! Good luck in your future endeavors.

People that make you :-)

Just the other day I got in my car and saw something that caused a smile to well up from deep inside. The something I saw would appear to be a simple baseball cap to anyone else, but to me it was a gift from a good friend. This experience got me thinking, what invoked the smile I was wearing from ear-to-ear? While the hat is a great hat, it certainly wasn't the root cause of my emotion. The hat reminded me of the person who gave it to me, Evan McBroom.
I think everyone has people in their lives that make them smile just thinking of them. It might not be that you have a friendship spanning umpteen years, but rather the person you are thinking of has a joyfulness about them. I imagine we have all experienced the pleasure of an exceptional level of service at a restaurant or café, and I would be willing to bet that it was the care and overall attitude of the person serving you, rather than the quality of the product that made all the difference. These people make life better.
So, thank you Evan for the work you do through Fishhook, but more importantly thank you for being you!

“Trying is the first step to failure.” -Homer Simpson

I would like to make an announcement to my entire reader base (a.k.a. Mom). I will be making a concerted effort to post at least three times per week. I should also warn that that my posts will undoubtedly be extremely random. It is my hope that through this experience I will be able to identify what I am most passionate about, or at least what I like writing about.
With all that said, get ready to join me in this A.D.D. blogging experience.

p.s.
This post counts as one for this week ;-)

Aspen’s Blog

Aspen Group has entered the "Blogisphere." The intent of this blog (http://www.aspengroupblog.com/) is to offer "unvarnished" bits of information, and provoke conversation about all the various aspects of planning, design, financing and building church facilities.

I am excited to see how this blog develops. I think that this will be a great place for church leaders to gain valuable insight on how to apply the plethora of information coming out of The CKN. It would be great to see some coordination between Ed Bahler's blog posts, which focuses on the understanding the critical intersection of culture, ministry, leadership and facility issues, and Aspen's blog which speaks to practical application of those issues.

For all of my faithful reader's convenience, I have placed an easy to use link here on the Blogoire.

P.S.
Aspen, that is a great books photo you are using for Brad's Library!

The Communication Conundrum

Missy and I have been married for nearly 8 years now, and dated for about 3 years before that. It has taken me that entire time to begin to understand how to communicate with her. Turns out I am a slower learner than I thought. Let me tell you about the recent breakthrough.

Like many so days before, I was on my way home from my “2nd Place”, work, and I called my wife to see how her day went. For many years, this well intentioned conversation has often taken a turn for the worst. After some intense research, Missy has helped me discover that these conversation catastrophes have been primarily the result of me saying the wrong thing. It turns out that when she presents a problem, or frustration to me, she is not looking for a Fix! Even though I have heard that "women do not want you to fix the issue", from her, and others over the past 10-15 years, it is hard not offering my inestimable wisdom to all of her tribulations.
So this is how the pivital conversation went down the other day…. I called Missy on my way home like I usually do, we discussed how our day went, and then the infamous moment where she explains a trial she faced during the day presented itself. I was faced with decision. Do I:

A) give her the obvious solution, that will undoubtedly make her life infinitely better, or

B) say these words “I could see how that would really frustrate you. How do you think you will handle this?”

Wow! “B” turned out to be the right answer.

As the conversation was coming to an end, she commented on the fact that it was a nice talk, and that I was really learning how to listen. Who knew it was that easy?!

To the newlywed guy out there reading this, trust me when I say, she doesn’t care what you think, only that you care. Listen-Don’t talk.

This has been another Duh!!.!! moment brought to you by Josh.

Bigger Costs Less

This post goes out to a couple of friends at Aspen HQ.

Yesterday, our good friends at the University of Utah released finding from a resent study conducted to determine if monitor size and aspect ratios effected productivity.

While I was not shocked to find out that a larger screen = increased productivity, I was shocked as to the level of increased productivity. Switching a user from a 19-inch display to a 24-inch widescreen resulted in the user completing tasks associated with documents and spreadsheets by more than 30%.

The study found the net annual cost savings of using 24-inch widescreen monitors in place of standard format, 18-inch monitors, including electricity and monitor costs, is roughly $8,400 per year, per employee. (That math assumes a staffer who makes $32,500 annually.) For Aspen Group, that could result in a $134,000 a year cost savings for the Frankfort office alone! Let me know if you want me to place an order Tom.

Thank you University of Utah!

October "The Ride"

This was a great day! Certainly blog worthy!
We had a tremendous afternoon for only $6.25. That's right, Six bucks for more fun than you could shake a stick at.
One Monday evening after work, Missy and I loaded up the family for an adventure that soon soon after proved to be legendary!
Our adventure had one goal, to ride every department store kids ride in town!! We had a riot! Kaitlyn loved the thrill of the find, and Caleb loved the thrill of the ride. We started at Walmart and ended at outside the food court at our mall. A truly great time!
I would recommend this event to anyone with little ones. Fun and cheap! There is even talk in our house about making a day of scouting out rides in a different town. I will keep you posted..

Click here to see more photos from the adventure!

Back to the Blogging board

This is hopefully my triumphant return to blogging. In an attempt to rectify my inexcusable absence, I am planning on doing a quick update from every month starting with September. To all of my faithful readers (aka Mom) I hope this is the first of many regular posts.

I think I will use this post to start us off.

September
This was nearly 75' of snow ago! The main event for me this month was the Basset hound parade in Dwight, Ill. I am embarrassed to say, but I did not know that Dwight was the basset hound capital of America!! Turns out that people from across the country bring their fury, fainéant, friends to this little town in Illinois to partake in some Midwest fun and festivities. Hundreds and hundreds of people and pooches paraded down the streets of town while onlookers cheered in delight. The K-9s also seemed to be very keen to the fact that they were also being observed by a panel of judges. If you are at all familiar with the basset hound, you know that these purebreds are not built for speed. The two day event help an organization called Guardian Angel Basset Rescue (GABR) raise money to help Basset Hounds that come into rescue. It costs, on an average, $250 in excess of the adoption fee for every dog rescued. We met the Blanchettes there for this spectacular event.

Not only were we able to enjoy the humorous hounds, we also bore witness to what could be one of the last traditional parades. During this parade we were not subjected to a bombardment of advertisements, or political campaign propaganda. Instead we delighted in local marching bands, old and new fire engines, local spots teams, the VFW, and other traditional parade elements. It was like being a kid again.

The basset hound parade is not the only thing going on in Dwight this weekend. The pooch parade co-insides with Dwight's Harvest Days which include bands, dancing, crafts, carnival, petting zoo, flea market, tractor show, and much much more! I would highly recommend planning a trip to Dwight next fall. Next years events will take place on September 20th and 21st, 2008.

Click here for more pictures from our day!