Good morning! I made the decision to get this letter to you guys done and out of the way early, because Bubba is going to have a pretty full day, between watching the final round of the Masters and the season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones.

I’ll likely be spending some substantial time on the lawn mower today as well. Thankfully, I’ve got ear buds and isolation cans, so I can listen to an audiobook while I’m out on the mower.

Dane came back earlier than I expected from his prom/after-prom event. I hope he had a good time. We’ll get a chance to talk later.

I can watch golf. I know a lot of people find it incredibly boring – it can be – but when the best players in the world get to focus on one course, one tournament, one major, sparks can fly (rhetorically speaking). Tiger Woods is in contention for the first time in years. It’s going to be a good watch, and an early watch as well – inclement weather is expected at Augusta later today, so the final round is starting early.

That’s about all I want to get into today. I need to make myself a fritata and a pot of coffee. (Giggling to myself right now, as my spell checker wanted to change the word “fritata” to “Atari”).

I crack myself up.

Peace y’all.

It’s a very quiet Saturday night in rural Douglas County, and I have the company of dogs.

Colby got into something nasty on his morning sojourn, so I gave him a bath late this afternoon, after the mud dried into a steady, fecid funk that caused my nose hair to curl. Yeesh!

Lucy and Freya are exercising their rites of spring by venturing a lot further off out on to our property than I care for. I worry. Freya is a scant five pounds of runt Yorkie mix, and Lucy is twice her size, and some of the predatory birds out here would look at them as a Thanksgiving meal.

(Reality: The big hawks and owls might be able to swipe Freya. My concern with Lucy are the coyotes I’ve seen around. If I have to choose between my family member and a coyote, I’m picking mine.)

It’s been a busy day around here, though, to get back on the topic. I picked up stuff for Lisa, including stuff I that had already been delivered to the house (derp!).

It’s so quiet. No kids, dogs are chilled out, and Dane (normally quiet anyway) is off to prom. Senior Prom.

Very cool.

Grace is out with her friend, Kate. Bonnie is up in Omaha visiting her best friend, Ella.

I’ve got dogs. I think I have low-carb chocolate ice cream. I have Netflix and some NBA playoffs.

I’m good.

Until I go to bed and find myself wishing my wife was there.

It’s always easier to sleep when she’s home.

Peace y’all.

Hello, my future grandchildren. Today is the second Friday in the month of April. I have been remiss in my blog posts the last couple of days, and, although I owe no one an apology, I think a little explanation is in order.

I was travelling on business. Tuesday I hopped on a plane to Chicago, and arrived early in the afternoon. I had a pretty free-and-easy day, with some free time, and I posted after I arrived at my hotel.

My hotel was hosting a convention. It really doesn’t matter what segment of the world they represented, but I can tell you under no uncertain terms, that the folks involved in this event seemed to be a whole lot more interested in their next round than they were with learning anything new.

It was noisy at my hotel.

Add in that I had enough adrenaline pumping through my brain to ensure that I was going to toss and turn all night. And I paid for it later in the day on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning I got up and got going in short order. I ordered an Uber ride to take me downtown ( my hotel was out by the airport), and I did have some time to chill out and maybe even nap a little bit before we hit the training site, Microsoft’s office in the Aon Center (and that has a personal touch of irony for me, seeings how I went to high school with the guy that is the current president and CEO of Aon.. I know, right?).

I arrived early, but I realized very early in the day that I had made one serious mistake – I forgot to bring a coat to Chicago. It had been in the mid-70’s when I left Kansas City on Tuesday, and was the same in Chicago when I arrived. Sadly, the weather didn’t hold. Wednesday was about as gray, cold, wet, and gloomy as anybody would expect in the Windy City.

So, I’m dressed like I’m going to hit golf balls after work – khaki slacks, golf shirt with the Microsoft logo on the left breast – and I have no coat. Fortunately, it was a short walk to the office from the drop-off point, so that was no real problem.

It wasn’t too long after I arrived at the office that I started getting some texts from the lead instructor for the day. Apparently, when it came to drawing straws for the Uber drivers circling O’Hare, she had drawn the short straw. While I had a guy that knew the importance of getting me to my destination on time and in good shape, she drew the short straw and ended up with a guy that knew as much about driving in downtown Chicago as an anemone knows about designing an airfoil. She was going to be late.

Fortunately, I was there and I knew what needed to be done to get things rolling. I signed off on the catering, and set my system up to by the display system and start the class for the client. The third trainer (yes, there were three of us total) helped me out with some of the settings on my Surface Book 2 that I was unfamiliar with, having had guys babysit me for years while I was with Centriq Training. I never had to set up a thing, and I have to admit, in retrospect, that spoiled me a bit.

The primary showed up right at 9, and we switched stuff up, and got rolling. It went just fine, as the client attendees were running a few minutes behin as well.

We had our class, and things went just fine. I stepped out to take a call later in the afternoon, and things were wrapping up in the classroom as my call completed.

Waiting outside the Aon Center at 5 o’clock for an Uber was not pleasant. I froze my butt off.

But, my driver showed, got me back to the hotel where I picked up luggage, then took the airport shuttle over to O’hare to catch my flight later that evening.

I might’ve caught a bug, or maybe I was just too tired, but yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. The primary instructor apologized, saying she might’ve picked up and spread a bug around, and that I might’ve caught a dose of that.

OK. I’m home safe now, I hit my six hundred word count to make up for a couple days in absentia. Now I need to post and refill my coffee before my 9:00 call with my manager.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Tuesday night, the end of a beautiful day. Lisa and the kids are all in their respective abodes, and the Lucy and Freya are looking for a little more tummy scratches.

Today I read something that bothered me. Apparently, for a number of years, American tax payers have been able to file their tax returns electronically for free. Kind of makes sense to me. After all, the American citizens are paying for the service, right? Every service provided by every branch of government should be owned by the the US government, and that government is a civilian-owned government. We are America.

Now I’m reading something that looks like the Congress is going to make take away that service to satisfy a couple of tax-preparation outfits (think Turbotax). It should come as no surprise that the tax prep companies have a lot of skin in this game, and I would imagine that their lobbyists are well-compensated for their work to keep companies like Intuit, H&R Block, and some others profitable.

But doesn’t it seem that in this case the government is showing favoritism to a few companies over the entire citizen population of the country? If you take a look at other countries, the role of their revenue services is to, first of all, make it easy for the population to complete their returns. They literally help people fill out their tax forms as a service from the government to the citizens. Citizens don’t have to drop a few hundred bucks to go to H&R Block for tax prep, and they sure as hell don’t have to pay fees to file their taxes electronically. What is up? This is a bit ridiculous.

But, that’s where we are. We’re ridiculous. We do some pretty stupid stuff because the system is set up to benefit those that can afford a Congressman or two.

I’m not happy about this. But, I’m never happy this time of year (unless KU wins a basketball national championship – yeah, I’m that guy). Our tax system is a joke.

Peace y’all

It has been a beautiful day here in rural Douglas County. Great to have a couple nice days in a row with some sunshine to help dry up the excess water that persists and persists after such a long, wet winter.

Had a couple of good moments with my manager. She likes that I’m taking some initiative with signing up as a second instructor for out larger classes, and even shadowing as a third when needed. I’ll likely sign up to do that regularly when the Solutions Architect classes come down the line so I can see that course taught a few times before I take the mantle.

My phone is going a bit nuts right now. Between pending travel, new clients, new calls, follow up calls, additional reporting. Lots of things going on. Combine that with selecting the patterns for the new pool liner (Lisa’s thing, not so much mine).

Texas Tech and Virginia are at half-time. I thought Virginia might run away with it early on, but Tech came back, tied it, and may have taken a one-point lead during that recovery period. I hope Tech wins.

Also of interest – the rogue adidas rep that got KU in trouble has agreed to pay restitution to Kansas for the trouble he caused. I certainly can’t complain about that.

Enough for now. More tomorrow.

Peace y’all.

It’s Sunday night in rural Douglas County, and it’s really feeling like spring. The temperature got up into the 70’s, and I even spent a little time on the mower. Gracie came out to the house to get the sunroom ready for her protracted stay following her upcoming knee surgery.

Tomorrow will be another regular work day for me here at the house. I’ll get my clothes organized for the trip I take later in the week. Probably ought to wash a few other things for other client appointments I’ll be making.

I’m happy. I like my job. I like the people I work with. I’m gelling into the processes. I still have plenty to learn, but working with other trainers will help me take the burrs out of the threads.

BTW, today is my youngest brother’s birthday. Like I mentioned on Facebook, we agree on more things than we don’t, and that’s good enough for me. Now if I can only master that bark that he’s able to get on a smoked brisket.

Lisa is sitting in the recliner next to me. She’s exhausted… and there are audio ques that she’s tired. OK, she’s out. It’s kind of funny.

I’m going to hang this up for now. I’m going to try and burn some more processor cycles on other things.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Saturday night in rural Douglas County, and the rain is coming down. I was hoping that we might be able to start mowing the lawn this weekend, but it looks like this rain is going to set this back a few days. Might be a bit of an indoor day tomorrow.

But that’s OK. I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied between looking over the curriculum that we’re teaching in the coming weeks, as well as the new courses that are going to keep me busy as I pursue additional certifications.

Lisa has been keeping busy, and has brought Dane in on her latest engineering project, which is a good thing for both of them. Dane is at a stage similar to where Bonnie was at his age. I know that working with Lisa will help him on his path, learning about testing methodologies and getting his mind aligned with the process of discovery.

I am a blessed man to have Lisa in my life. 23 years now that we’ve been married, together 24. I’m looking forward to where the next years take us. I am grateful that I’ll have a chance to accrue some travel points, and I’ll be able to take her on some journeys that we dreamed of, but now we’ll be able to take together, whether on business or just on holiday.

Coaches are entertaining.

Time to call it. I’ll watch a little more basketball, then maybe sip a little red wine outside in the rain.

Peace y’all.

OK, I’m not going to lie. My obejective is to crank out my two hundred words as quickly as possible, because I’ve gotta go pee.

Isn’t the at the reality in a lot of situations though? You have this responsibility or that responsibility, but sometimes the finale you present is affected by the demands of some the situation beyond your control.

I’m waiting on some marching orders right now. I know the class is booked, I know the class is happening, but I’m not sure which office the class is taking place, nor which room. At first blush, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it does affect some things relative to me. I don’t know which office… but I wan to stay at a hotel that is as close to the venue as possible. It matters It affects my timing as well as other timings. It’s kind of a thing.

After that, back home, review, then back out on the road again, I’m not going to shy away from the opportunities. I know the other trainers in my team won’t either. We all want to prove out value and present as well as we can.

Just a bunch of random thoughts. I still have to go pee.

Peace y’all.

It’s Thursday night in rural Douglas County, and I think I hear a car door close outside. Might be one of the kids, might just be one of the neighbors. I likely won’t know until somebody comes knockin’ on the door.

Not really… Bonnie and Gracie both have keys. If somebody does come knocking, it’s more than likely a neighbor or a lost delivery person.

It’s been a busy day. I was locked in to be a second on a course in Chicago next week, and some other things have been firmed up moving forward. I sat in on a few other meetings earlier today as well.

The information is moving. It’s very different from any other training environment I’ve ever experienced, and that’s not a bad thing. Microsoft is efficient, supportive, nurturing. They want their people to succeed and I’m feeling that. It’s very exciting.

I’m part of the Azure Technical Training team today, and I like it. I’m being tested, I’m being challenged, and it appeals to me. I needed this change. I was getting maybe a little too comfortable where I was (with a great training center, by the way). It’s just that I had fallen into a routine.

New things are popping up every day. I’ve got stuff to do every day, but I’m not waiting on people to tell me to do stuff… I’m taking the initiative and doing things on my own. And it’s fantastic. I’m seeing a new side to myself. and it’s great.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Sushi for lunch tomorrow.

Peace y’all.

OK, here we go. It’s getting to feel more and more like spring out here in rural Douglas County, and temperatures will be in the seventies on a pretty regular basis in the coming days.

I’m looking out at the yard and putting a little list together in my head of the things that have to be done to do some basic grooming of the yard. I still think I need some parts of the yard to dry up a little bit more, but the fact is, that grass is not going to cut itself. There’s more than a couple of hours of yardwork waiting to be done.

Picked up another assignment today. I’ll be travelling with another trainer to teach a couple of classes overseas. We’ll be doing two classes, back to back, in different European cities. It will be a good trip for us. He has more experience with Microsoft, while I have a little more experience teaching in the classroom environment.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. I have several calls with several different teams, starting early in the day and going through to the end of the day. I’m still under the weather, but I’ll get my meds and grind it out.

That’s about all I have for you guys tonight. I hope your world is turning the way you want it to.

Peace y’all.