How was your Holiday Break?

Today was the first day back at work after the holiday break at Tech. Some of my Co-Workers knew of my Dad's passing but not all of them. One of the common questions I got was "How was your holiday Break?"

It's a tough question to answer and after giving many various answers throught the day, i've finally decided how to answer in the future. How Was my holiday break? Bittersweet.

Bitter in the loss of my Father, but Sweet in the fact that I'm FINALLY making forward progress in my life after what seems like SUCH a long time. I've got fantastic friends who are helping stretch me in new and exciting directions. I've got goals I've set for myself (One of which I've got to hurry up and get done tonight... I'm on a roll for Heaven's Sake) to make my Life better. I'm even considering taking up one of my oldest hobbies again once things settle down a bit.

Life is a new and exciting thing for me once again, and I LOVE it!

Update

Sorry for the lack of updates. As some of you might know, arranging a funeral is not a fun process especially when the death takes place out of town or even worse, out of state.

I have learned a few valuable lessons I'd like to share to hopefully make the process easier for those who come after.

1) Have a Will
2) Have said Will in a safe location
3) If you have said Will, be sure it is where you tell your executor where it is.
4) When and where possible, plan ahead.Work out as many details as possible in advance. Keep the planning materials with your will.

Anyway, Things are progressing well. Dad will be cremated and we will be having a memorial for him In early February to allow as many family members the chance to come as possible. I'll be posting updates as possible.

Phone calls

I really dislike early morning Phone calls. Especially the ones that you don't really expect to get and like the one I got this morning. Here is roughly how it played out. I missed the initial call and was left a message.

Me: Hi. I got a message from you that I needed to call you about my Dad.
Gal on the other end: Yes, I'm with the caretaking company that goes and checks on your dad once a week.
Me: Yeah, Dad told me about that.
Gal on the other end: I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but when we went to check on your father this morning, we discovered that he has passed away.
Me: *silence*
Gal on the other end: Joseph? Are you ok?
Me: What?
Gal on the other end: Are you ok?
Me: Are you kidding me?
Gal on the other end: Honey, I'm sorry, but I'm not. Are you ok?
Me: uhhhh... yeah. I'm a little mad, but I'm ok.
Gal on the other end: I understand how you would be....

The Phone call I have been dreading most of my life... What a sucky way to start the day. I would however like to say to the gal on the other end of the line: Thank you for being so understanding during what was one of the most difficult moments of my life. Your calmness really set me at ease with what I need to get done.

For those that don't know much about my dad, here are some facts. He lives in Amarillo. He has been a diabetic for most of his life. He didn't really take care of himself. He passed away as a result of not taking care of himself. Yes, I'm really a little mad at him, but I'm happy he's not sick anymore and he's with his family again.

I spent two hours on the phone this morning calling family members and close friends. To those of you who I missed in the first wave, I am sorry. Someone in the family will be calling you with details shortly. If you read on, you'll know what I know.

I spent about three hours on the phone with various members of the Amarillo Police/Court Systems and various departments trying to track down where Dad is. It's a PAIN in the butt when they don't live in the same city as you, but that can't always be avoided.

What I know at this point:

There will not be an autopsy. The police discovered no signs of foul play and with the medical history I'm sure they will rule it either an accidental death or natural causes. I was under the impression that there would be due to someone discovering his body.

Dad would not want us to interrrupt our holidays any more than aboslutely necessary to get him taken care of. I have been sure of this fact since I first heard the news. The service will probably be sometime next week, possibly later to allow those who want to attend a memorial to come.

You now know as much as I do. Tomorrow I head to Amarillo with my Sister and brother in law to start the arraangement process and then I'm heading back to spend Christmas with my Family and friends.

On that note. I would like to thank some people up front for things they have already done for me. Dealing with a loss in the family is hard enough, but these people have really done more for me than I expect. I'm only going to list a couple, but you all know who you are.

Jan: Thanks for being a Boss that is concerned with my well being above and beyond what a "normal" boss would be. Your advice and experience has already benefitted me.

Darren: You've been my friend for nearly 20 years. Thanks for lending me your ears and giving me some time of normalcy and stuffing me with pizza for dinner.

To My Fish Tank Friend: You know who you are, but I'm not sure you read the blog, but anyway... Thanks for the Hot Chocolate and the hour and a half that you forbade me from picking up my phone, and simply being there. It did a lot to restore what little sanity I had left for today.

To all my other friends, I love you all and I am grateful for having you in my life.

Expect more details in the coming days and also more blog updates. I think this is going to be an outlet that will do me a lot of good. Now in the interest in what little bit of normalcy I have had today, I'm off to bed. I've got a big day ahead of me tomorrow.

To my Friends

I'm not sure where to start.

Perhaps "Thank You" would be the best.

Yeah, Thank You.

I am truly blessed to have a friend like you in my life.

You Rock.

Things I learned this week

It's time again for a recap of what I learned this week.

1) Christmas music is not as bad as I remember it being. I've been a grinch for far too long during the holidays.
2) Pigeons are NASTY birds. Their droppingfs are even more nasty
3) Ethernet cable looks interesting, but it is a PAIN to make by hand.
4) Getting up Half an hour earlier is a real challenge for me
5) Using your turn signal in Lubbock is pointless. Other drivers see it and floor it so you can't move over.
6) Judy Garland was a hottie! Oh, and she can sing more than Somewhere over the Rainbow.
7) My niece is full of good advice. Some of which was confirmed by a friend during this week.
8) It is always important to teach girls/ladies how to change a tire while YOU change it. They appreciate it, but will still call you so you can rescue them. :)
9) Keeping stuff in storage is far too expensive. Especially when it turns out it's mostly junk you don't need anyway.
10) Having a washer and drier that work in your house a is a HUGE blessing.

So, do share... What did you learn this week?

Work

I've been working a lot this past week on one of our computer labs. It's almost vaccation time and i've got this one last thing to get done beofre I can go. The boss initially said it as a joke but I think she means it now when she says I can't gon on vacatio n until the lab is done.

These computers got here on the 8th. I didn't even get to start working on one until the 10th. In order to replace the lab we had to pull all 25 computers, all the cabling, monitors and other equipment that was there as well since we got entire machines monitors included.

Thanks to my coworkers, they got those out pretty fast and I've been working on the cabling and getting the image ready tpo  push onto the other machines. One of the nice little tricks that most non IT people don't generally know about is something called imaging. This is where you take a snapshot of one machines hard drive, and the use it to set up the other idnetical computers. This allows us to spend one day working on one machine and getting it all fixed and ready to go and then use that image to get the other say 24 done in one eight hour day.

Any guesses on what I'm going to be doing tomorrow? I'm gonna be busting my tail to be sure that this gets done before I walk out at 5. It's going to be an interesting day for sure. I'm super tired so i think I'm going to call it a night and curl up with a good book.

Ahhhh Crap!

You know, life is full of funny things that can turn out to be great lessons if you let them. For instance... This morning I was walking across campus and had just walked out of the arch under the English building heading toward the Education building. I felt a small tug on my lower right leg. I stopped, thinking I had dropped something. I didn't see anything unusual, so I continued to walk on.

Fast forward to three hours later. I'm crawling around on all fours wiring up the computer lab and I look down. I see this HORRIBLE mess on my lower right leg just above my shoe. I'm trying to figure out what the heck  it is, and it dawns on me... Some stupid constipated pigeon had dropped half his body weight in poop on me and landed square on my leg.

Mildy irritated, I stopped what I was doing and proceeded to the bathroom where I scraped off the still moist bird dropping. (three hours later, it was still moist!! That's how HUGE this dropping was) Feeling totally nasty, I went and told the boss I was going to change clothes over lunch. She asked why and I had to (Not really had to, wanted to!) relay the whole story again. How often do you get hit with a pile of crap and live to tell about it?

Long story short, I went home, changed and then it dawned on me. If I had been walking a SPLIT Second faster, Said poop would not have been on my pant leg. It would have been on my head and all over me. I would have lost time at work because sure as anything, I would have turned right around and gone home to shower. GROSS!

Yes, I got pooped on today, but at least it wasn't a poop shower! Live and Learn!