Border Skirmish…. Lots of fun. Enjoyed being with my friends. I was quite proud of the Illitonites. We fielded enough folks to be a mini unit. (smile)

“who the fuck really cares when your  so far left that even death looks right.”

“I’m so sick, infected”

Work’s been crazy. Life has been hectic, but I’m still alive.

And blessed.

But there are things that make you stop and think.

Last night, I got a call from Brad, one of our “newer” fighters. His father passed away yesterday morning at 1 am. He wanted me to know why he would not be at practice, so we would not worry about him.

We also talked some about his father, and how much the group means to him right now.

You never know how you affect people, or how meaningful simple gestures are to folks, or, quite frankly, how much you mean to others.

As a side note, he was sorry he would not make it to practice, as he finds solace in it. AND because he did not want to miss training……

Think about that when the hangnail keeps you from going to practice… I sure as hell won’t be making any excuses for some time.

Apparently, his father was a very colorful guy, as is his son. I wish I would have met him. Among other things, I guess he played for 7 or so years in the major leagues in new York. Like I said, sounds like an interesting fellow.

There will be no invitation, but we will be driving up to Crown, and will visit then.

In terms of motivation as well, I took last Thursday to go to a baseball game in St. Louis with Dolph and Mike.  Mike shared a writing that was done by a friend of his. I found it very moving. Hard to describe, but it affected me deeply. Someday he may share it with others. Not sure.

The march to get ready for the summer continues.

We are running some melees at practice now, and folks seem to enjoy it. Eric and Jamie came over this weekend to help us get stuff ready. I now have a new leg harness, four new swords, a bunch of new straps, and the crown shield is halfway done. It’s coming along.

This weekend, I need to finally print the Ermine on the tournament shade fly, and Constance is busy sewing away on her new dress. This strategy of  a new dress every six months is paying off. Her “nice garb” closet is growing.

Also helped her with her garden on Sunday. Got a lot of stuff done there.

Looking forward to Chaos Caravan. It’s always a fun event. One that Constance really enjoys. It should be fun!

We got to practice outside last night. It was very well attended. We had 14 in armor, and two in Rapier gear.

I had an EXTREMELY good weekend. Very relaxing, got some great stuff done, got to spend some very quality time. It was awesome.

It’s been incredibly busy, but I’m still alive. Our first customer Is safely in the new solution, and things are… optimistically good. (I will not say “fine” as that is usually when the sh*t hits the fan)

Unto the Knights, Captains, Sergeants, most worthy Men at Arms, Yeomen, and Cavaliers who, by various devices, are attached to the banner of the Company known as the Army of the Midlands  do I, Baron Robert Downey, send warm and brotherly greeting.

( XO and army stuff )

Tournament for Rites of Spring: Birds and Bees

I am still alive! I promise. (laugh) I feel like I’m barely alive, but  that’s ok. (laugh)

Day 5

Worked till 2:30 AM this morning/yesterday. Back at it at 8. Will go into details later. Tired.

Got some good work done.

Public network access speeds in excess of 148 Mbps… yeah, you read it right…

Things are looking good, but having trouble typing. Probably gonna knock off early at 6 tonight. Gonna sleep.

Then tomorrow we are going to the Smithsonian!!!

I am tired.
 

Day three. Brain really taxed today. The new FWSM for the Cisco 6500 chassis are awesome! Awesomely complicated, that is.

I beat my head against this damn thing pretty much all day. I ALMOST have it working. It’s basically like setting up 50 enterprise firewalls at once. Tough to keep track of things, to be sure.

A bit about the facility. It is very secure. Complete with hand scanners and man traps. (yeah, man traps at the entrances.)

The people working here have been AWESOME. They are very responsive, on the ball, and are just the right mixture of professional and personable.

I got a text from Dolph today with some really good thoughts. Plan on addressing that tonight.

My compatriots are adventurous diners, like myself. We wound up at a small Thai restaurant tonight. We got out of work at 8, and they actually stayed open past their normal time for us. It was appreciated.

Tomorrow, with the firewall(s) up, and the vlans running, I have to tackle ACLs. I hate ACLs. The logic always seems backward to me. (sigh)

So far, I have seen my hotel, the Data Center, a Pizza place, a thai place, and a Burger king. No sightseeing. I think we have determined though that Saturday, come hell or high water, we are going to take the day off and go see something cool.

It looks like Jason is heading back Friday night, and Greg is going back to take care of his very pregnant wife this weekend, so it will just be Bob and I, which isn’t really a problem at all.

More AD folks laid off today. Deep cuts. 5% from Heller’s organization. It’s gonna really hurt. We were already having problems getting things done when dealing with the company, this is going to make things worse.

I am very grateful for this  opportunity. It’s a huge boost for my resume, and having so much work to do in days like these makes me feel doubly blessed.

I am confident now that if anybody can pull this off, it is this team. We are working extremely well together, and progressing rapidly. I had my Boss’ boss labeling cables today. (yeah, it’s his career on the line too. (smile))

Now if we can find our Tape robot, things would actually look peachy!  We have decided to call the robot “Bender”. We plan on finding a sticker of Bender to put on the actual robot. We have 90 Terabytes of useless tapes, if ole Bender can’t be found. (frown)

I had a loved one send me a very beautiful communication recently. I am truly blessed. I got to talk to My dearest Constance, so the night is officially done.

As soon as I finish outlining the initial ACL template for tomorrow, I’m off to bed.

I am pleased. We got a great amount of stuff done today. The facility is top notch, Security is excellent, and the staff are top flight.

Got the core switches up, and half the vlans defined. Having trouble with making the port channeling working with the 802.q trunking, but it is fixable. Have to research that tonight.

Tomorrow is the firewall initial install. Or rather 30 virtual firewall installs. (laugh)

It is around nine tonight, and I still have a lot of work to do to prepare for tomorrow. A most promising first day, to be sure.

Had a couple good flights today. The room is nice. I tend to like Marriot hotels. You can generally figure out what your stay will be like as soon as you talk to the front desk person.

She was nice and personable.

My co-worker Greg flew with me today. The other two will arrive tonight . Hoping to go get some supper when boss man arrives. In about 30 minutes.

It is hard leaving your loved ones. This one won’t be as bad a project as the Pontiac one, though. I got confirmation that the electricians are done, and the majority of the intel and Cisco gear is racked and stacked. We should be standing well tomorrow to get started.

Greg and I wandered for a while and found a little pub for “lunch”. Sitting at the bar, we started talking to this fella who wound up owning an IT company in Indianapolis. I enjoy these kind of random adventures. We had some good conversation and some good beers.

Waiting now for Bob to get here so we can get some supper.

So far, so good. Room is nice, people are friendly. We shall see what tomorrow holds.

It will be good to get this thing off the ground, so I can get home and pick up the ends that I have left dangling. the Midlands Army thing is weighing heavily on my mind.

I am not practicing at all these two weeks, but there is a nice gym here in the hotel, so that will be nice. My teacher told me to take a break so I am. I am sure I will start to get itchy after two weeks is out. (laugh)

Quick update…

ok, so, remember when I said that Ursula the Unrelenting had been replaced by Ursula II.... Well, I am no longer calling her Ursula II, for two reasons...

1. she is far too bubbly, blond, and bouncy to be an Ursula. Ursula was slightly dark, and chuckled at your pain.

2. She is a special brand of sadist. All golden hair, and perkiness, while inflicting bubbly pain upon her hapless subjects.

Case in point (and the reason I feel it necessary to post twice in a day):

In between the Tricep and Bicep routine, she exclaims: You know, if we hurry, we can get some more squats in while our arms rest!!!

we proceeded to do 100 "extra fun" squats in one minute and 30 seconds.... Then, all happy and giddy, we went in to do biceps...

Evil little Bitch.

From now on she will be known as giggling Gretle the torture wench!

This weekend had it’s good moments, and not so good moments. (laugh) I worked from about 3 in the afternoon till 11:30 on Saturday.

To seek stillness. How does one do this? How can one pursue not pursuing something?

I think I have made a mistake. I gave up my studies of Tai Ji Quan to pursue other things. Now I am beset with the need to use it to still myself.

An off handed comment from Moonflake set me to thinking upon this. I took out my notes from my original study of this, and realized that I had forgotten all the lessons that would help me move forward.

I feel like I’ve traversed a great arc, and am back to where I started. But perhaps I am now ready to understand.

This is just a symptom of the greater problem, that I have stopped cultivating the things I need to for the sake of expediency.

I have striven hard to sharpen my tools, but have ignored the most important one. My spirit. It feels dull.

Vadi tells us that sometimes we will be “as an extinguished light.”  That is how I feel, and that is why I fail.

I have forgotten much of what I have learned, because it was in my head, not my heart.

Time to begin again.

Last night was practice. It was cathartic. I enjoyed being in armor. I had taken a whole week off due to my head injury. There was some debate on how wise it was to only take a week off, but I am comfortable with my body, and am learning to listen more to it as time goes on.

ment.