So I’ve been pretty quiet since I hit 100k words- what’s been going on? Round of layoffs at work Friend diagnosed with cancer Another round of layoffs at work. Jackie became a pampered chef consultant Finances have been wiped out from christmas and getting her PC stuff off the ground. 10% paycut at work Guitar lessons are now done because no one can afford them. Have been reading Manuscript Makeover for ways to improve my book Decided to do an initial cleanup of the first draft of my script, then rewrite the outline before starting draft #2 started yet another opensource project- this time it’s a collection of Nagios Plugins.

Ingredients kid hose sprinkler yard wife who doesn’t want to get wet step 1 take the kid outside to play in the sprinkler step 2 immediately get wet with the water that’s still in the hose and warmed from the sun step 3 get the kid soaked step 4 take the sprinkler off of hose step 5 show kid how to drink out of hose, hand him hose. Make sure to hold onto a length for crimping

My internet connection. SO here’s the scoop 5 days until cutover: I call AT&T, tell them I’m moving and need to transfer my Static IP DSL service on the 30th(Monday). Tech says no problem it’s all set. I am pleasantly surprised at how little of a hassle it was and that it was way smoother than any other interaction I’ve had with them. Saturday, 2 days until cutover: We’re planning on doing the actual moving Sunday morning and plan to spend Saturday packing and planning.

So Ian is staying with Jackie’s mom this weekend. Jackie left to drop him off about 10am friday morning with the intent of being back in Troy to pick me up around 6pm. Around 3pm one of the guys I work with walked into the room and began a conversation like this: [matt] Anyone want tickets to see Kids in the Hall? [me] How much? [matt] Free. [me] ooh, I’ll take them!

So jackie wants to take her recipes and build an open cookbook sorta thing. I’m not sure how all of this is gonna play out, but I’ve set up the dev environment for it. I’ll try to make notes about it when I can.

Whew, it’s been a busy year. Back in 2005 I wrote a list of things I’d like to do eventually that I’d be able to do if I had the time and resources that winning the lotto would provide. I’ve made a positive step towards realizing a couple of those. Family The big change this year was the addition of Ian. We didn’t get off too well in the beginning, but we’re doing pretty good now.

So Jackie’s been sitting at home with Ian for 4 months now and is incredibly bored. All she every does is read. I suggested a hobby, but she doesn’t really have any (except scrapbooking, which is expensive)- So what I want to do is get some ideas from all the people who read my site. Here are the base rules: cheap- no more than $25 start up cost and that must last 3 weeks.

So some time in the middle of the night, I’m awoken by this strange, high pitch squeaking sound- almost a whistle. I could hear movement in the other room, so I figured it was the cats playing with a toy.In Truth, the cats have ADD and usually stop after about 10 seconds or so, but this kept going… 20.. 30 seconds. I finally got up and walked into the other room to see chaos playing with a live mouse.

Doing another annual recap this year like I did last year. 2006 was a pretty rough year- move from DC Metro back to Grand Rapids, got a crappy job, found out jackie was pregnant, got laid off from crappy job, spent 3 months unemployed, and at the end of November was offered an awesome new job in Troy, MI (the other side of the state). Other than Ian, and the new job, the best good news is we finally have a decent couch- two of them, actually.

Jackie and I finally agreed on a name a week or three ago- “Ian Hawthorn Morgan”. We also bought the domain IanHawthorn.com for him- figured it was something he could take over when he’s old enough- it’s also gonna serve as a news center for family and friends. Jackie’s already set up a wordpress theme and started posting emails we’ve received and other such details. I’ve revised my categories on this site and added one for ian when I mention him.

Today I find myself a little of both. I was called into the confrence room today and told that the company I was contracted to requested that today be my last day. Yes, I am officially unemployed. Fortunately I was laid off, not fired- turns out business wasn’t as good as they were hoping and they can’t afford someone to try and fix their broken infrastructure. Since they fired a developer a few weeks ago, and the lead developer put in his 1 week notice today, I can’t say it’s suprising- if they’re getting rid of me after losing two other people, they must be hemmoraging money pretty badly.

Jackie is pregnant. Looks like I’m gonna be a father.

For the few people who haven’t heard yet, Jackie and I will be returning to Grand Rapids. I was offered a position at a local GR company as a Network Administrator. The company seems really nice from what I saw last friday. I can’t describe how much I really hate the DC area. It’s just too crowded for me. Among the many benefits of this move, Jackie and I will:

Well, it’s Feb. 26th and it’s still nice out. it’s only 34, but it’s bright and sunshiney. It was 60 last week, and it’s been decent most of the winter. My brain is starting to activate and come out of winter hibernation, so that means it’s time to start planting. Since I live in an apartment, I don’t get a real garden, so we have a bunch of pots and windowboxes and such.

Had a discussion with my wife last week about how much we share on our websites. It sounds like there is some concern that we talk “personal” issues on our websites- like my temper tantrum when pablo died, and how jackie’s family act like children when you get them in a room together. So here is my statement on it. If I discuss it here, I have nothing to hide. I am not perfect, nor do I pretend to be.

I don’t even know where to begin. This morning has sucked and it’s no ones fault but my own. It started with the DMA crap- the one machine where it would really help is the fileserver. I needed to simply change the chipset driver, recompile the kernel, and reboot. This should be simple for even a semi-competent linux users. However, I am a moron. Each mistake I make, I’m gonna put a little * next to it.

Hrm… I think I’ll try something new this year. As some of you know, 12/31 is my birthday, and I’m 26 now. That makes it twice as good to look back on my life and reflect. So what’s changed? Quite a bit. I always had a goal growing up, that when I was 25, it would be the one of the best years of my life. Looking back, I think that it very well could be.