Lake Powell Trip #2

A group of 5 couples from the neighborhood went to Powell the weekend following my last trip.  We spent a whole week down there, just adults no kids.  The weather was great.  We played and played.  We swam, rode jet skis, I fished a lot.  We ate lots of good food.  We went to church in Page, Arizona.  That was fun too.

This was a very relaxing trip.  It was a nice time away and not being 'in charge' like when you take a family vacation.  The kids would have had a lot of fun too, but it was nice for the adults to be silly too.  I have been asked to do a slide show with all the pictures and video that was shot.  I'm putting together a nice DVD for everybody.  It has been fun to go through all the pictures again...I really want to go back.

Last night Nick and I got to go fishing with Brett and Cole.  They took us in there boat out on Willard bay and we were able to fish the wipers when they were biting heavily.  Man, they are fighters.  The largest one I reeled in was around 5 lbs.

I got to take the kids duck hunting a week or so ago.  It was the youth hunt and the kids have licenses because they finished hunters ed.  They had a good time, although no one got hit any.  We'll get to go out again sometime soon.

Lake Powell Trip #1

A couple close friends from work (Shaun & Monte) invited me along on a short fishing trip last week.  We took off to Lake Powell Thursday morning and returned Saturday night.  These guys are die-hard fishers and hunters.  It was a very fun trip.  We rented a trailer to stay the nights in and spent the days out on Monte's pontoon boat.  What a great relaxing trip!  When we weren't fishing we went back to the trailer and would watch hunting shows on TV which would usually end up with everyone falling asleep.  The fishing wasn't great but that really didn't matter.  It was relaxing and we had a lot of fun.

I shined up my bike today, it was nice to ride it around running errands today.  Our days of summer are numbered.  I took the day off to be with the kids today, but I still ended up working a few hours.  I had to meet with some Techs from Qwest and our business partner to discuss changing some phone lines for the county 911 dispatch.  Its amazing how many people have to get involved to make changes.

I'm sitting in my back yard right now enjoying watching my chickens run around the grass.  I've gotten to where I can recognize them by their voices and can tell what their clucks mean. 

Its the last week before school starts, Nick met his teacher today and soon we will be back into a more normal routine...I look forward to it.  As much as I hated hearing my mother say the same thing when I was a kid, it will be nice when school starts again.

We went to the temple last night. I was amazed at how different I felt leaving than when I entered. I was able to walk out of there with more comfort, confidence and peace. I stumbled across someone's blog recently. They left the LDS church and converted to Catholocism. The entry I stumbled across was a discussion of how they missed going to the temple and the peace it gave them...interesting.

Work is frustrating. We have some fairly big projects...big enough that we can't do them alone. We are using vendors and business partners to pull them off. Its frustrating because they're looming over but we can't do anything yet. I've been working on capital improvement budget for our phone system. That I can handle. It deals with Technology I'm comfortable with, my strength in Finance. It is fun even though I am pretty sure that the budget request will be denied. Last year we just submitted numbers, this year I think I'm going to submit more of a proposal outlining benefits etc.

 

Sang this in church today. It touched me more than ever.

I know that my Redeemer lives.
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, he lives, who once was dead.
He lives, my ever-living Head.
He lives to bless me with his love.
He lives to plead for me above.
He lives my hungry soul to feed.
He lives to bless in time of need.

He lives to grant me rich supply.
He lives to guide me with his eye.
He lives to comfort me when faint.
He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.
He lives to silence all my fears.
He lives to wipe away my tears.
He lives to calm my troubled heart.
He lives all blessings to impart.

He lives, my kind, wise heav’nly Friend.
He lives and loves me to the end.
He lives, and while he lives, I’ll sing.
He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King.
He lives and grants me daily breath.
He lives, and I shall conquer death.
He lives my mansion to prepare.
He lives to bring me safely there.

He lives! All glory to his name!
He lives, my Savior, still the same.
Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives:
“I know that my Redeemer lives!”
He lives! All glory to his name!
He lives, my Savior, still the same.
Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives:
“I know that my Redeemer lives!”

Text: Samuel Medley, 1738–1799. Included in the first LDS hymnbook, 1835.

It's been an interesting week. At work I have a lot of tasks going on. Some I'm familiar and comfortable with, some not so much. We're trying to build our new network which includes new Domain Servers, Active Directory, Email Server...we are upgrading from an infrastructure that is several generations back. We have several Windows 2000 servers, we're running exchange 2000. AND we want this new foundation to be as virtualized as it can be. We have a new SAN and have been working with Compellent to manage it and VMware to be the virtualization layer. So as you can see there is alot to learn.

A few weeks ago I took an Exchange 2007 class, big difference than the 2000 version we're running. Most of all I learned that I don't know enough about Server 2008. so now I am reading up and doing online training in that area. Its pretty overwhelming.

I have been updating our helpdesk software...that is something I am fairly comfortable with. We're getting ready to roll it out again...which means notifying all the employees of the benefits of using it. It has a nice portal interface that I think should be fairly friendly.

At home we're getting ready to go camping. I have been exhausted all week and am not looking forward to the packing and setting up. I have to keep reminding myself that last year I noticed how enjoyable it was even for an over-nighter.

Here's some info about my work-life:

Employed for county government doing IT/Telephone support. I support the following technologies:

Windows XP
Windows Server 2000-server 2008
Exchange 2000
Upgrading to Exchange 2007
Avaya Definity PBX
Avaya Audix VM
End user support
Backup/recovery

I also do tech-support for a few businesses in town. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping businesses who don't know where to turn for technology related issues.

Today I downloaded Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 (free) and installed it on my work PC. This allowed me to create multiple virtual computers inside my computer which is nice for testing or learning how to manage. Now I'm installing Windows 7 RC (which is a free pre-release version) on one of the virtual machines I've setup. This can be downloaded until next month and will work until June of 2010. It will be nice for me to be able to open up the new OS in a window (better than the days of dual booting) and get the feel before I have to work on it for real.

Joan said I should convert our home web page to a blog...I'm thinking about it. Right now I'm hosting our web page on a server in our basement. There's something to be said about hosting it yourself...the fact you can do it, control etc. Right now its available here: http://natehammer.homeip.net

This is a place holder for Nate's Blog.

I will post some stuff...someday.

In the mean time, here are some points of interest:

http://www.ogdencoinclub.dyndns.org/

http://www.geocities.com/lakebonnsymph

Nate's Blog Site

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