I have been able to blog much lately as you can plainly see.
My time has been spent as of late at a clients office where we are releasing a major project.
I think we finally have a good handle on the changes that we had thrown at us last minute.
It amazes me how much more a project usually becomes once a client understands the depth of data that they are collecting….
Good stuff.
Alas, another weekend has come and gone….
But what an awesome weekend!
Nan had baseball practice Saturday morning. Will decided to tag along with her to the park. Jacksy and I went on a walkabout to the local yard sales. Nothing much found. But it was fun anyways.
Saturday afternoon, our friends the Crows came for a visit with their clan. What a great time the boys had. The four eldest boys played straight through! Not once did we have any issues at all. It is so nice to be able to do that with friends. Get together and let your kids play and know that they will get along and not get into too much trouble. They are boys after all…
We had a wonderful time with Bruce and Lorraine chatting and spending time. Bruce and I ducked out the driving range for an hour and half to blow some balls out. It was fun. Bruce used Nan’s new clubs and liked them. He declined however to use her pink golf glove.. Not sure why 
We then had a lovely dinner together and the Crows left around 7:00 pm to go home. Wonderful Saturday.
Sunday was just as fun..
We got up at a leisurely pace, had some breakfast and then took off to go golfing as a family! We had a blast. The boys are beginning to understand that they need to TAKE THEIR TIME. By the end of the round, they were hitting the ball fairly well.
Nan is a machine! Her drives were awesome! Straight and true. Once or twice she probably hit it at least 175 yards. I am so thrilled with how she is doing. I did ok, but not fantastic. I shot a 42 over 9. I suppose it is okay for the first time out of the season. Nan shot a 53. That is awesome considering it is really the first time she has golfed… The boys shot 51s…. well, for the most part, they only shot from 100 yards out at the most on every hole and did not play 2 or 3 holes at all. They were very happy with the results.
Then we came home, got some groceries, hung out in the back yard and had a family movie night with pizza. We watched Night at the Museum. It was quite enjoyable. We all had a great time.
Today we are back to the grind. Blech. Oh well, gotta work to live, right! I am definitely a work to live kinda guy right now. Not a live to work live guy. I think I like it better that way. When I work, I work hard, when I play, I play.
Here are some pics of golf.
My mother-in-law is not with us anymore. We lost her 2 years ago this summer to a long fight with cancer.
I miss her a lot somedays. She was always cheerful. She was a little gullible. She was certainly very easy to tease mercilessly. We had a lot of great times together even though I really only got about 15 years of time with her. Most of all, she loved me unconditionally.
She never had a harsh word for me. She was the ultimate in mother-in-laws. You might THINK that your mother-in-law is the best, but nope, no way. My mother-in-law was the best that ever was.
At this time of the year, I tend to miss her more. When you start thinking about Mother’s Day and all that goes with it, a lot of people in this world probably have a hard time thinking about their families, struggles and so on. I can’t understand others feelings. I am not them. But I do recognize the loss I feel that Mom McGrath is not here any longer.
But she was something else I tell ya. Good memories…
I enjoy the game of golf.
In fact, I would tend to call it a passion really.
I am not very good at the game though. I have what I thought was a terrible slice. It is not indeed a slice I found out this week.
One of my clients has been an avid golfer for 40 years and I was lamenting to him about my terrible slice.
He said he could fix it with 15 minutes on the driving range. So, 3 days later, they we were, me in my dress pants and good shoes at the driving range with my client.
Man, this guy is good. He picked my driver up and was hitting a consistent 200-230 straight down the fairway and making it look easy.
It turns out I do not have a slice. I have a straight push. Oh yeah, a straight push… Whatever Don, it still sucks!
10 minutes later, I am consistently starting to hit a great deal better. I might have a 5-10 degree sway but for the most part, I would be good on any fairway with that.
Last night, I went to the driving range. It is so much nicer going there when you have something tangible to work on. I had two goals… Driving straight and a consistent 175-200. That I am doing now. I just have to remember the tips my friend gave me. Secondly, I want to figure out which club I can hit for consistent results. I have NEVER been consistent with any of my clubs. Lo and behold, when I swing the way my client instructed me too….. consistency..
Stupid game. I am not sure why I like it so much.
I have been writing a particularly large bunch of code lately for a client.
We are building a Point of Sale system for his seven stores.
We are connecting his 7 stores to his main office nightly with dialup connections because he has little or no use for hi-speed internet in his retail locations. I cannot say I blame him. No internet means his staff are not surfing for half the day.
I have been building the system based with a front end of Microsoft Access. I have used it for years now and am very comfortable with it.
I am writing the data server in mysql. Actually each store will have its own little mysql server to store data on.
Here’s the catch. Everynight, I need the home office system to connect to 7 other systems, pull all of the updated and new data, amalgamate it and then return it individually to each store….
I got it working today. I knew there had to be a way to syncronize data between multiple databases and I was lucky enough to find a couple of articles about it on the web.
Yipee!!! This will now allow me to finish this project up ontime and right on budget. It is nice to be able to go back to the client and tell them we are right on target.
Sweet. So, my stress levels are way down. I am feeling that I can easily get a handle on this one now.. It was starting to stress me out thinking about the potential of what I would need to write if this syncronization thing was going to be sticky.
Thank you Lord for answered prayers…
The Chairman sang it best….
The most beautiful girl in the world picks my ties out
She eats my candy, she drinks my brandy
The most beautiful girl in the world
The most beautiful star in the world, ’tisn’t Garbo
T’sn’t Dietrich, but a sweet trick
Who can make me believe it’s a beautiful worldSocial ? Not a bit! Natural kind of wit
She’d shine anywhere, and she hasn’t got platinum hair
The most beautiful house in the world has a mortgage
What do I care ? It’s “Good-bye, care”
When my slippers are next to the ones that belong
To the one and only beautiful girl in the worldSocial ? Not a bit! She’s got a natural kind of wit.
And I tell ya, she’d shine anywhere, and she hasn’t got platinum hair
The most beautiful house in the world, it has a mortgage
What do I care ? It’s “Good-bye, care”
When my slippers are next to the ones that belong
To the one and only beautiful girlThe one and only beautiful girl
The one and only beautiful girl in the world
Today is our anniversary. 14 years of awesome times.
She is the most beautiful girl in the world. Not yours, no sorry, mine. mine mine mine.
She is incredible folks.
April was very busy.
I cannot even remember most of it really. Too busy.
But I came across these pics this morning and wanted to share them.
The first is when we put up a new shed.. I know I blogged about the fact that we were going to do it, but did not show the result. Here it is. It sure is nice to not have everything wet in the shed anymore
Secondly, my mom and my aunt came to visit us very early in the month. What a great time we had!
Aunt Nan was slightly befuddled by the pace of life at our house, but they had fun nonetheless.
I love these two women.
I have been blessed to have quite a few mother figures in my life.
My mom.
My Aunt Nan.
I will talk more about these ladies later in the week, if you know what I mean…. 
We played hookey from church today.
We have been feeling very weighed down lately. Not that a lot of others don’t feel it. Some do.
It seems that most of the time when we set foot in the church doors there is something to do work wise. I am NOT complaining here. I love working at our church and love seeing people there and coming to know God’s love.
But we needed a little break and thankfully there was a couple that said they would teach Youth Sunday School for 2 weeks (Thank you Bookers!) and Nan is not scheduled for Worship team for this week and next so we decided to stay home and do some family stuff.
We got up late… Well, a half hour anyways.
We went to William’s Coffee Pub for breakfast. Oh my, what would my mom say. I was in a pub! Ha ha! Just kidding mom. I know you know I am okay.
Then we went to Canadian Tire to replace a pole in our badminton set that has lasted all of 2 weeks. Wow, who would think to use plastic poles for a badminton net… not me!
Then we decided to pick up some cold meats and buns and veggies and take the bikes to Springbank park and have a picnic and go for a ride!
It was awesome. There was a charity run of some sort on at one end of the park and at the other end there was a cycling road race. It was cool.
The boys were able to play at 2 parks, we had a great lunch together, sat, talked and had a great time cycling. (well, Nan rollerbladed because we cannot fit 4 bikes on the car anymore…..)
Jacks was even able to feed the ducks with part of a left over bun.
Then we went to Chapters. William has had a gift card burning a hole in his pocket since his birthday. He was able to get a wonderful book all about Pirates of the Carribean. He is thrilled.
Came home, fixed the badminton net, raised the seat on William’s bike, put a new tie down rope on the canopy, watched Flushed Away as a family, and then had dinner.
What an awesome day.
I have been thinking about a change for the look of my blog for a bit now. I finally made a decision with the help of a couple people today.
So, don’t be all freaked out by the new look. It is still the same nonsense content as before. I love the middle picture in the banner. I dressed up as Princess Leia for the Christmas concert at church. Very serious stuff y’know….:)
ttfn
The email seems to be working now. Finally.
Man, even when I asked these guys what the issue was, it was like pulling teeth to get answer. It was like they did not want me to know the secret to taking over the world.
It’s just a mail server guys, relax….
Anyhow, all that is behind me hopefully and I can move ahead and enjoy the day!
It is supposed to be a beautiful day today with sun, sun and more sun!
Yeah!
Toniight is the annual meeting at the church. I have been nominated to be an elder in the church. Not sure how that is going to go over with the members. We shall see.
I hope that the meeting wraps up by 9:30 tonight. If not, we may have to duck out a little early. We were able to secure tickets to see Spiderman 3 for the 10:00 show with the Koehlers and are very much looking forward to it.
Have a great day everyone.