Today was the best day I have had in a long time. The weight lifted off my shoulders feels so nice. I still have a TON of work to do before my 2 weeks are up, not to mention getting all the stuff out of my office (I’ve considered renting a truck… it’s not really that bad, but it’s close).

I wore blue jeans to work today. Because I can. Also, because I won’t be able to in the new job so I am enjoying it while I’ve got it.

I started documenting the system today and realized how much I just… know… about this network. It’s stuff that no one else on the planet knows and its kinda cool. It is also daunting because in 2 weeks I have to dump all that knowledge to paper and I am bound to forget something. I’m one of those people who can’t remember my own name unless it is important that I know it at that moment. When something breaks, the synapses just fire and the information comes back. 5 minutes before that I couldn’t have told you anything about it. This network has been my “baby” for 2.5 years and that’s a long time in a world where machines have a 3 year life cycle.

Anyway, the weight being off my shoulders really lightened up my day. I managed to make it through the day with minimal stress. It has been a good day.

God is good. Life is good.

I know, the title is cliché, but my life this last 3 or 4 weeks has been an exercise in learning to trust God.

Ann and I have been through lots of stuff in 5 years of marriage. We’ve moved 4 times, had 6 jobs (between the 2 of us) and attended 4 different churches. We lost a child, now we have a great little boy. We’ve had money in the bank and we’ve been broke. We’ve had sickness and we’ve seen healing. We know and acknowledge God’s hand in all of it. Looking back, I know God has been there through all of it, yet in the last few weeks I have had the most difficult time really trusting that God has my life in his hands.

Psalm 37:25 says

I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread

I know that God has never left me. Not one thing I have come up against has ever been bigger than Him, yet in some way I have this feeling that I can’t let go and stop worrying about things. Somehow I have gotten the idea that my plans have to be in order for Him to do his work, and the revelation I have gotten this weekend is that my plans don’t mean anything.

Again, I “know” that in my mind, but knowing that He is going to handle it and actually trusting him to do it have proven to be two very different things.

I really got released from it all today. That came as a combination of things. First, in my prayer time last night (which sounds much more “Holier than thou” than it should) God really spoke to my heart and revealed some things that cut me to the bone. When I woke up this morning, my life looked very different than it did last night.

Second, we had an awesome worship service this morning which spoke to my heart and gave me an opportunity to thank Him for the change he has started in my life. I know that I can do that on my own, but something about doing that as a part of corporate worship made it even better.

Third, Ann was speaking with someone from life group who knows what we are struggling with and who has some knowledge of the other side of our situation who really had some encouraging words and good news about how things might turn out. Of course, I won’t know until tomorrow what that looks like.

I have actually been sleeping pretty well lately because I have worn myself completely out worrying all day about what is going to happen next, but tonight I have a feeling I will be awake all night. The difference is, this time it’s because I am excited to see what God has in store for us next. That’s a really great feeling.

What ever God has in store for me, I know it will be enough.

The “big news” is on hold for now. Things aren’t working out quite as I had hoped. Sorry to keep you in the dark, but sometimes having a non-anonymous blog means not being able to tell everything you know.

We attended the Huntsville Hamfest yesterday. It was good, but we only saw one person we knew and the fact that we are broke (well, too broke for me to buy anything really cool) kinda put a damper on it. Also, it was much smaller this year because last year Huntsville hosted the ARRL National Convention.
After that, we decided we were in the mood for Pad Thai. Sadly, the Thai restaurant closed at 2 and reopened at 5. We got there at 3.

No problem, we’ll go to Plan B: SUSHI!

Closed at 2, reopen at 5. It’s now 3:15.

So we went to Red Robin. They were open, but they might as well have been closed. The service was mediocre and the food was only okay and only if you could get it while it was still hot.

Overall, Saturday was a flop.

Today has been some better. I had the normal 7:15am call at church and my sunday nap, while short, was still observed. Made it out to where my brother and I hunt to check our feeders and do some work around the shooting house. I bought a thermometer so I can know exactly how freaking cold it is when i’m sitting out there listening to my brother kill deer. Seems like thats usually what hunting means for me.
Anyway, a busted weekend, but not totally lost. Today was redeeming.

It’s worth mentioning that the sermon at church today was great. Oddly, the sermon was about Angels (actually this would have gone great during our Mythbusters series), but some of the off-topic comments the pastor made were meant for me. I normally would go work on the computers during a sermon topic like that, but today I needed some of the “sidebands” that came out of it. (Sideband is a radio term. Look it up, it will make sense)

The problem with the turns in life is that, even when you see the curve in the road, you never know for sure whats on the other side.

I’m having one of those days. Due to the fact that I can’t be positive who reads my blog, I can’t reveal details right now. I hope to know something firm next week. Until then, please just pray for wisdom for both Ann and I as we make some tough decisions. I think this will turn out to be a positive experience for us, but I want to be sure we remain in the center of God’s will.

Here are a few things I have found that make the day pass faster. Of course, you should *never* do this stuff at work, and I *promise* I didn’t find them by looking at the firewall logs. Honest.

1. The Fail Blog - Just collections of images where people or objects are unsuccessful at their tasks, with the mocking word “Fail” somewhere on the image.

2. Penguin Ball - Help the Yeti hit the penguins for distance

3. I Can Has Cheezburger - LoLCats and other LoLCat speak sundries. I can’t help it… it’s just funny.

4. Fark.com - “Not News” site that has some humorous headlines and a comment thread that can be outrageously funny. It is however, sometimes NSFW so don’t let your boss or your children in on the secret.

5. Listoftheday.blogspot.com - This is another one that I can’t help but be addicted to. Again, some of the content is not exactly rated G, but it generally stays in the PG to PG-13 range.

6. LarkNews.com - A funny, funny look at the church. I’m not easily offended by it, but then again I am pretty cynical about “doing church”. Maybe I just understand part of where those “all Church people are hypocrites” are coming from. Either way, this site is a funny look at churches. Be sure to go check out the T-Shirts. I”m thinking of buying some for my pastors.