Last day of June

It is hard to believe that 2008 is half way over already! Time seems to be flying.

It was a very hot weekend for Portland. On Saturday, it got to 100 degrees here, which is much higher than our normal summer temperatures of the 80s. The forecast is for it to be more moderate through the next week. On Saturday evening, we watched The Other Boleyn Girl with our friends Les & Keri. It was an interesting, but not very historically accurate movie. Last night we watched Fools Gold, a cute movie.

Joy and I attended a credit repair seminar over the weekend by Jim Longacre, the creator of the recreditpair Credit Education Software. We're going to use the methods that we learned to improve our credit rating and hopefully be able to get a newer vehicle to replace our old Ford van and its 14 mpg.

This is a short work week, since Friday is July 4th.

A nice weekend in Oregon.

James and I had Multimedia Duty Sabbath morning at PVC. There was a strawberry shortcake feed between 1st and 2nd services--Yummy! For the afternoon, we joined some friends from church in a picnic at Sellwood Park. It was comfortable under the trees, eating, visiting, and watching some baseball being played.

Yesterday, we did more unpacking, getting the kitchen, the office, and the living room into better shape. In the evening, we watched a couple of DVD movies on our new 42" Toshiba LCD TV; even without Blu-ray, the quality of picture is dramatically better. Jumper was exciting, but required a total suspension of disbelief, at least for me; of course, many movies have that effect to me. The Bucket List was a good, wholesome film that made me value life and relationships. Of the two, The Bucket List is the only one that I'd consider buying.

Finished with the move

We're all moved out of our apartment into our house. There are still lots of boxes to unpack, but it is nice to have the extra space to live in.

Yesterday morning, I watched Tiger Woods win the 2008 US Open playoff. Both players did well, but I've been a Tiger Woods fan since his first Master's victory, back in 1997.

Today, I participated in the Firefox 3 Download Day, trying to set a record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period. I've been using Firefox as my primary browser for years. The extra speed from version 3 is appreciated.

Father's Day Weekend

It's going to a busy, and not too fun, Father's Day. We're moving on Sunday into a rental house. It will be nice to have lots more room, but moving is on my top 10 worst list.

The last weekend has been busy with graduations. On Thursday, John graduated from 8th grade at PAES on Sunday, Vainiaku graduated from 12th grade at PAA. Now, John is a freshman at PAA, while Selita is a senior there.

Gas prices keep shooting up. At one of the stations that I drive past on the way to work, a gallon of gas went up 5 cents in the nine hours that I was at work. I know that I'm driving a lot less now than I had in the past!

June is starting

It's going to a busy week. Thursday is both Joy's birthday and John's graduation day from Portland Adventist Elementary School. After John graduates, his 8th grade class is having two parties, lasting all night long! Because of all of this activity, we'll probably celebrate Joy's birthday on Friday.

On Sunday, Vainiaku will be graduating from Portland Adventist Academy. Knowing that I have a daughter going to college in the fall makes me feel old!

In between all of these items, we're also packing, getting ready to move into a rental house. It will only be about a mile from our apartment, so that part won't be too bad. It will be nice to have twice as much space to live in, along with a garage, so we won't have to keep our rented storage unit.

Obama for President

On Sunday, I went down by the Willamette River in Portland to hear Barack Obama speak. He is a very charismatic speaker, getting the crowd of 75,000 very fired up. I hope that he'll be the Democratic nominee and the next President of the United States.

It was a very sunny day, and I got a little burned, but it was worth it. I got to shake hands with Steve Novick; I voted for him for the Oregon US Senate race, based upon reading his interview at slashdot.org.

A busy couple of weeks

Between softball games, birthdays, etc., it's been a while since I've posted here.

Vainiaku and Selita have been playing PAA softball. They've won about half of their games. Their last games of the season--and V's last games as a high school student will be this afternoon at home against Corbett.

This last weekend, we had a surprise 40th birthday party for my sister-in-law, Tammy.

I'm in the process of setting up a used Compaq EVO D510 2GHZ computer that I got from ebay for only $41. I've installed the Ubuntu Hardy Heron on it. It will be used as a web server/proxy server/etc.

I've also added a new Linksys WRT54G-TM router with Tomato firmware as my primary router, with my older WRT54G connected to it using WDS to increase wifi coverage.

We found out this weekend that we have to move out of our apartment at the end of May. We'd planned to move this summer anyhow, but the timing is inconvenient, what with 8th grade and high school graduations, birthdays, etc. Oh, well, these things happen.

A very nice weekend

On Friday, I setup a used LinkSys WRT54g router using Tomato Firmware. This gives my router much functionality that isn't included in the stock LinkSys firmware, including SNMP and remote syslog, so that I can more readily monitor what is going across the wire. I got the router for only $30 at Stuff, which has pretty good used equipment.

It was a very nice weekend in Portland; it was actually hot out! On Saturday, we went to the Oregon Zoo. It was crowded, but we have an annual membership, so we got in easily, not having to wait in a very long line to pay for admission. The warm weather seemed to make even the animals lethargic.

Yesterday was our son John's 15th birthday. We ate out at Red Robin, and gave John an 8gb iPod nano for his present.

April has started

TGIF!

We've had very nice weather for most of this week. It has been clear and cold in the morning, but sunny and in the 60s during the afternoon. Today is cloudy and rainy, but I guess we'll survive.

The PAA girls had a softball game last evening that they won by 11 runs. Go Cougars!

I've been busy at work learning about Nagios, Big Brother, and Hobbit, all suites that can be used to monitor system performance, uptime, etc.

March is at its end.

It was a nice weekend. On Saturday evening, we went up to Vancouver to work on Joy's sister's computer. She had a printer that she'd gotten for free that needed hooked up. They have Qwest DSL, but the HP driver package was almost 350 mb and with their slow DSL, it would have taken about 4 hours to download, so I actually drove back home, downloaded it via our cable modem and back to Vancouver in about 1 hour.

Yesterday, Joy made homemade cinnamon rolls--Yummy! :-)

Today, it's back to work Monday.

More songs to listen to.

I just upgraded my Dell Axim PDA to have an 8 gb CompactFlash memory card, double the size of my earlier 4 gb version. Now I can have all of my songs from my notebook always with me and I still have lots of free space to grow into. [Fry's had a very good price on the card!] My old card is going to be put in Joy's PDA.

It was a nice, relaxing Easter weekend. March is rapidly coming to an end.

Another week is finished--March is half over

Time is still flying pretty fast. March is to the mid point. Next thing you know it'll be summer again!

Last evening, we went to Pleasant Valley Church to get pictures taken by Olan Mills for the church directory. Joy had us wear suits and ties; oh well, it only happens occasionally. I'm glad that I don't have to wear a tie to work. I don't think I could stand that.

Get ready to Spring Forward

Reading about the snow that is still hitting the midwest, makes me glad that we live in Oregon. The crocuses and daffodils are already starting to blossom and I saw some trees in bloom, too. Tonight, we push the clock ahead an hour. I wish that the government would just leave DST in place all year long! This evening, Joy and I are going to Pleasant Valley Church for a fund raising dinner in support of the youth outreach program, Pipeline.

I finished my first full work of week at ARRIS in Beaverton. I'm hearing lots of new terms and acronyms that I need to learn.

I finished my first day at ARRIS

I'm home from my first day at ARRIS in Beaverton. It is nice to be working again--and my benefits begin tomorrow, so that's good news, too, especially with having a family that needs medical coverage.

I ate lunch today at the Old Spaghetti Factory with some of my friends who are also Serena Alumnis. Most of us already have new jobs in the pipe, so our layoff hasn't had too much of a long term negative effect.

James and I have multimedia duty at Pleasant Valley Church tomorrow.

I got a job!

I'll be starting on February 29 at Arris in Beaverton. I'll get to relax some this week. Looking for work, interviewing, etc., are very stressful, at least to me.

The PAA girls are over at Burns playing basketball tonight against the Hilanders. Go Cougars! The winners tonight move on to the state tournament.

PAA Girls won last night versus OES.

In their first playoff game, against Oregon Episcopal School, PAA won by 5 points in a hard fought basketball game. Hopefully, they'll continue the winning ways against Warrenton. Go Cougars.

I've had several phone interviews and some follow up interviews, but so far, no offers. I know that God will take care of me and my family.

Another week is done

On Tuesday, I had an interview with a company in downtown Portland. I think that it went well, but I'm always afraid to get my hopes up too high.

Thursday evening, I went over to Oregon Episcopal School to watch the PAA girls play. It was a good game, with PAA coming out on top. Tonight, PAA plays at home against Warrenton. If the Cougars win, they'll be in second place in their league.

Last night was the first meeting of Revelation Speaks Hope at the Oregon Convention Center. It was a good meeting with a good turnout.

Tomorrow, we're going over to a friend's house to watch the Super Bowl--at least the guys, anyhow. The girls are going to be watch chick flicks! I don't have a strong favorite between the Patriots and the Giants, but I'll probably cheer for New England, since they are the AFC team.

Another layoff :-(

Last Tuesday, my job at Serena Software, along with those of all of the co-workers in my development group [plus our neighbors in the happy pod], was offshored to India. It was a total surprise--and a very unpleasant one. On Friday, I had a phone interview with a company in downtown Portland. It seemed to go well, but it is always hard to tell. Oh, well, God will take care of us.

On Friday, Joy and I drove up to Multnomah Falls to see them with the ice around. It was very pretty--but cold.

A great basketball game!

Last evening, the PAA Cougar girls played a close, hard-fought game with the Catlin Gabel Eagles. It was back and forth the whole game. PAA trailed by one point with 6 seconds to go and we had the ball. My daughter was called for traveling, giving the Eagles the ball. Luckily for us, they threw the ball out-of-bounds, giving us one more chance. My daughter, Vainiaku, was under the basket with the ball, shooting and making the shot, as the buzzer rang to end the game with a win. Go Cougars!

Our good friends Les & Keri came to watch the game. They are new, proud grandparents!

Today, our son John is going up with his classmates from Portland Adventist Elementary School to Mt. Hood Meadows for a day of skiing. It should be a very nice up there. There is no new snow, but they have over 11 feet of snow at the base, so there shouldn't be any rocks showing!

A good weekend

Ron Halverson had the sermon on Sabbath, January . His topic was preparing, via prayer, for the upcoming Shawn Boonstra evangelistic series, Revelation Speaks Peace, to be held here in Portland at the Oregon Convention Center. On Sabbath afternoon, he had a follow-up meeting at the Ambridge Event Center to help us learn to be Prayer Warriors.