2010 Year Review

This year has flown and a lot of things have happened over the past year. Here are a few highlights…

-The biggest change for me this year was becoming a father! God blessed us with our sweet Nora born in May. I’ll never forget seeing her being delivered – the legs flailing about and listening to her letting us all know she wasn’t a happy camper those first few minutes of her life! She is such a happy baby all the time. I love being her Dad.

- Really realizing that family comes first. It’s easy to be just out of college, work hard, give it all you’ve got, etc. Once you get married it’s easy to want to prove that you are a providing husband. It’s easy to get wrapped up in those things and to lose yourself and who you are. I first experienced that this year, or was on the brink of it. Having a baby really made me realize that my family is my first and most important ministry that I have. Never lose your priorities and never let people set your priorities for you.

- Debt paid off. Kara and I are big into Dave Ramsey. We’ve taught the class at our church twice now after taking the course. It’s changed our lives forever. We now have two cars paid off, our second mortgage paid off, and are working on my grad school student loan. I never thought we’d get that thing paid off, but we’re starting to see it dwindle away in larger amounts! We also were able to refinance our house at a great rate recently (under 4%). So now we are also seeing the principle on our house going down more and more as well.

-Back in August of 2009 I started a job at MAP International. MAP sends medicines and medical supplies to countries all over the world to those who need it most. Switching over to MAP allowed me to work for a larger organization that does great things while learning new IT skills at the same time. It’s been a great experience for me over the past year and a half. I recently decided to make another switch to the Southeast Georgia Health System. I will be a Network Analyst working for all of the campuses of SGHS in southeast/coastal Georgia. One thing is for sure, I will never forget my time at MAP and the impact the organization makes on lives all over the world.

-I’m an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer). It took months, lots of reading of thick books, a two-week ‘boot camp’ in Atlanta with a great instructor and lots of late nights studying to pass this thing. It showed me how much I didn’t know, but also how much I DID know. I was surprised that a few people had not even cracked open a book to study for the first exam – or had hardly any experience in networking before coming to the class. It humbled me, allowed me to meet some great people and challenged me to get other certifications in the future (CCNA, MCITP).

– I got an iPad thanks to my lovely wife. You know, I really haven’t been all that thrilled about any Apple product since the iPhone was introduced. They are all GREAT products, but iPhone really changed everything. Everything is mobile now. Everybody is mobile now. When iPad was introduced, I wasn’t shocked at it’s design or form factor. If a phone can be as thin as an iPhone, then why couldn’t a device that does the same thing minus the phone part be just as thin? iPad just seemed like a big iPhone without the phone, which it essentially is. But as portable as my MacBook Pro is, iPad really is awesome when I just want to check my email, Facebook, or Twitter if Kara has the laptop – and I don’t kill my eyes anymore reading text on my phone. Heck, I’m even posting this blog from the iPad now. I can also even use it to login remotely to do work stuff when needed and tons of other things that I’ve found over the past few days of having it. Kara loves it for cooking. She can keep it next to her in the kitchen to look up recipes, etc. Portable just got more portable. This will definitely now be our travel/vacation computer too – no more lugging around a laptop bag and case with chargers.

Those were a few highlights from 2010. Lots of big things happened and 2011 will bring more changes to our lives. I’m looking forward to seeing the adventure God has for us this upcoming year.

-Posted using BlogPress from iPad

Cravvy-Otto

Craviotto is how it’s really spelled. Being a drummer I’m always on the lookout for the latest and greatest set of drums out there…or drum. They are sort of like computers, always changing and evolving. You always have different types of woods, finishes, sizes with different drum companies trying to capture the attention of us drummers. For most of my drumming life I’ve been a brand-loyal Drum Workshop customer. I knew, even before I came close to affording a dw drum that I wanted a dw drumset.

What got my attention? Honestly, it was the marketing they put out and their attention to detail and craftsmanship in creating their drums. The marketing was great – all I had to do was turn on MTV or watch a concert live and see the white ‘dw’ logo against the black drumhead. Seeing bands that toured the world many times over play dw drums was enough to convince me of a few things:

1. They must be made well to survive all that touring
2. They must sound amazing in-person for this drummer of that band to want to use them
3. They always just looked great on stage – something about them
4. They survived the ‘fad’ phase. A lot of artists played dw drums in the early 90′s – but instead of slowly dying as the bands disappeared – they have only grown. All kinds of people play them from all types of music. A lot of other drum companies are around today just because they have a single drummer endorsing them and only seem to market to a specific crowd.

Well, I finally got a set of dw drums and will never play anything else for a few reasons:

1. I can’t afford to buy another drumset
2. They are the best sounding drums I’ve ever played
3. Being hand-crafted, hand-tuned and having each shell individually picked based on it’s tonal characteristics…with the note of the shell stamped on the inside of each drum – who does that?!?!

Well, lately another drum company has caught my eye. They actually used to produce certain types of snare drums for Drum Workshop  before splitting into it’s own company. The Craviotto Drum Company. This company is unique in that they don’t produce drums made from plies of wood. Most drum shells are made from plies of maple, birch, etc, which are then glued and pressed together to eventually form the shell of the drum. Craviotto drums are all a single ply! Does that mean they are paper-thin? Nope, it means that the wood is cut to a specific thickness of what is needed, say, for a snare drum. It’s steam bent and formed. Eventually it stays round and forms a drum shell. Now imagine this for all drums forming a drumset. I used to own a DW/Craviotto snare drum and it was so very loud. This is one set of drums I would love to sit behind one day and play. They remind me a lot of dw in that they are not mass producing drums. They are all hand-crafted and it shows in how they sound and look.

 

 

Pull the Plug

Yesterday I worked from 8am to 4:45am. It was planned that we work late ‘after hours’, but I don’t think my director and I realized it would be almost 5am before leaving. We basically took apart our data center and re-cabled the entire thing – network cables, power cables, intercom cables that looked like McGyver put them together, everything. Though the work was tiring, the result was a very organized and neat data center.

Needless to say, I was exhausted Friday at work. Yes, I was back at work 4 hours later. I did leave a little early and came home and crashed for about an hour. Fast forward to Friday night. I’m working on something for work – basically I just have to check on it every 20 minutes or so to make sure it’s running. It can take a while to complete and I have to check on it by logging into our network at work from home. It’s almost done after hours of running and then it’s gone. I lost total connection to everything. I’m sitting on the sofa praying it’s just a fluke – that I don’t have to go back in at 11pm to check on things. I check again, again, again. Before I know it, I’m walking in the doors at work.

Odd, the sign out front is not lit and the lights inside aren’t detecting my motion walking through the building. It’s also kind of warmer than usual in here. What’s the beeping noise…

Complete power outage in the entire building. It’s almost like someone pulled the plug just on our building. Right in the middle of my work completing, probably right during backups were running, and other important things. So, I’m there, by myself, in a dark building, can’t do much at all. I went from going 100mph to going 5mph in a matter of seconds. When the power is out all you can do is wait. It’s almost the ultimate way of making yourself slow down to just about a complete stop.

At times we all need to pull the plug on our lives. It’s so hard to slow down in this world with all of our commitments, friends, family, work, church and so much more that rules our lives each day. I think having a ‘power outage’ on our lives  every once in a while would let us see who we are, where we are in life and what needs adjusting.  Driving back to work tonight I asked God just to be with me, reveal to me a little of his plan for my life in some way or another. I think this may have been His way of reminding me to rest and re-focus on life and what matters most.

Importance of Family

It’s probably easy to forget the importance of family for some – especially when you’re young, busy with your life, your work and everything else that life throws at you in a given day. Sometimes though, you just have to say ‘time-out’ from everything else and go spend time with family.

Before I go any further, I’ll give you a brief description of my family background. First, my family moved around a lot when I was a kid. We really didn’t have a ‘home-base’ where everyone lived. Unlike my wife’s family, who all mostly lived in the same area her whole life – all of my family (Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins) were and still are dispersed all over the place. Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Alaska – you get the point. We’re everywhere – which meant that we didn’t always get to see each other all that often. And if we did, it meant a lot of traveling.

Well, this past week Mom mentioned to me that she, Dad, and my sister were going to visit my Grandmother in Tennessee. Before I knew it, Kara, Nora and myself were in TN taking a ‘time-out’ for the weekend. Grandmother is 89 – it was time that I go see her and introduce her to Nora and let her spend some time getting to know Kara as well. We knew that it would be challenging – driving from Brunswick to Morristown, TN – it’s a heck of a haul – and having a 3-month old doesn’t help you save time on the road either! But, we drove through the night on Friday, spent the night in Asheville, NC, then continued on to TN for the weekend. Thanks to priceline.com, we saved $52 on a hotel room in Asheville – not to shabby.

We all had a great time – Nora did wonderfully seeing all these new people and didn’t seem to mind the crisp 75 degree weather either. Grandmother was so happy to see her and to hold her. It will definitely be a moment I’ll never forget.  Here are a few pictures:

Grandmother and Nora

Mom probably putting Nora to sleep

Nora cheering for Ole Miss – at least until the 2nd overtime

Grandmother and Mom

Grandmother, Kara, Nora and myself

The view from my Aunt and Uncle’s:

Take a moment today and realize the importance of your family and let them know what they mean to you.

Came home to this…

It was a really busy day at work today. Non-stop, constantly doing something, work. Work…why do I call it work? It’s more like I’m learning something new each day – not working. I’m working and learning. I should start calling work not work but ‘learn’ – they are both verbs, right?

So I came home from ‘learn’ today – a little tired, but still going strong from being at…’learn’. I peeked in on Nora and saw this:

Immediately I stopped and just smiled. She got my heart again. Just laying there. She showed me how to rest and that I need to slow down at times. She then slowly woke up to her Mom’s sweet voice.

Happy Father’s Day

Upon having a baby, you quickly realize that your life just turned upside-down – and it’s awesome. Being a Dad, has so far tested and challenged me more than anything I’ve ever done in my life. I’m growing as a Dad, yet each day I realize that I’m just a baby as well – needing God’s strength in everything I do. I’m sure God looks down on me and sees my form of crying, my form of being whiny, my form of needing food and comfort – and He always provides that. Sometimes can’t you just feel God pick you up and hold you?

Now, another thing you learn is that your life is no longer all about you (it never really was anyway) – but now all your attention is focused on this baby – even on a day honoring those that are fathers – you want the attention given to your kids – not you. They’re the reason you’re a Father in the first place! So, on my first Father’s Day, we decided to get both families together for a little cookout and dessert. Here are a few pictures from earlier today:

Nora got all pretty today by getting a bath! Nothing like a fresh smelling baby to start the day with and she’s got to look good for all the company that will see her today.

All dressed and ready to impress. I’m more impressed with those eyes myself. But the girl does sport pink pretty well.

Grandma Witherow and Nora. If you can hold Nora and almost have her asleep – then you’re a natural.

My lovely Kara and our sweet daughter. No hair products including styling gel, pomade, mouse or aqua-net were used in this picture.

Time for baby holding intermission with some amazing food. Kara made this dish called ‘Chop-Chop Salad’. Basically it’s a lot of veggies chopped up with a dressing mixed in. She’ll blog about it soon. (Note – this causes major gas pains for babies – eat with extreme caution!)

Grandpa Norman telling funny jokes!

Grandparent’s Witherow doing a little pose for the camera.

Grandparent’s Norman doing a pose as well – Nora is doing her sleeping pose.

The trio posing – Nora keeps same pose usually on most normal days for many hours.

All the women – Mom, Kara, Nora and Mauri.

All the men – Dad, Me, Nora, Allan.

Nora is over it and just wants to hit the hay for good!

Q & A with Nora

Me: Hey Nora – how about a question or two?

Nora: I don’t know about that, Daddy. I’m pretty content just laying here. Let me think about it.
Me: I’ll rock you to sleep tonight if you’ll answer one very important question!

Nora: It’s a deal! Ask away Daddy-o!
Me: Ok – What’s your…wait what’s that look on your face for?

Me: Are you about to..oh no..don’t fall asleep…

Me: Ok, you had me worried – sometimes you do like to doze off into sleep-land. Now back to the question. Who is your favorite musical artist?
Nora: Let me think about it…

Nora: Oh – that’s an easy one – my favorite artist is…

Me: Oh no – looks like she fell back into sleep-land. But I bet I know the correct answer. Her favorite artist is Michael Buble’!

Comfortable?

Really, is this comfortable? Seems to be her preferred sleeping position.

Agrirama

I’m not sure how else to describe it, so here’s a quote straight from the Agrirama website:

Agrirama, Where the Present Meets the Past!
Explore the farms. Listen to the barnyard sounds. See bacon and ham curing in the smoke-house and preserved vegetables in the canning shed. Experience everyday 19th century-style farm like activities, from planting and harvesting to cooking, spinning, quilt making, and more. All structures have authentic furnishings of the period.

The friendly staff shares the history as they perform daily activities whether in farmhouses, fields, sawmill, turpentine still, schoolhouse, blacksmith’s shop, or the grist mill. Stroll up the main street to the feed and seed store, the print shop and drug store (with an authentic antique marble top counter).

That’s a lot better than what I could have done! Kara and I went to it as a part of the South GA UMC Annual Conference last night as something to do. I’ve been playing the role of Mr. Mom for the past few days watching Nora in a room by myself. I had to get out and do something, anything – and Agrirama was it – here are some pictures:

A few pictures of the local scene. It was like you were walking through an old town that is ‘stuck’ in time.

Old wooden stairs up the side of an old wooden building always makes me take a picture.

Most of the walkways in the town were like this. No paved roads. Not very stroller friendly as we found out. Reminds me of an Country Time Lemonade ad.

The town had its own train too.

A little sunset shot over the tracks. And no, I didn’t step past the ‘No Entry’ sign.

An old wagon.

The three of us. Nora is looking for her thumb to eat.

Since Nora got hungry and the gnats got worse it was time to follow this sign out. We had a good time walking around outside meeting  and speaking with some great people.

Our Monkey

One of her many faces – she has a new one for us each day.