Friday, January 28, 2005

Lewiston is completely frozen

I don't know how cold it is you all are, but for crying out loud ... I'm sick of this cold. It was -10 again last night. That's FREAKIN cold!! And it seems like it snows everyday. We have about 18 inches on the ground now, after the last two snow storms. It will probably be June before we see the bare ground again.

This week has been amazingly busy ... I've been teaching day and night. I guess that's a good thing, though. The training business had been pretty slow there for a while and now it's really starting to pick up again. Next week I'll be teaching day and night as well, but I won't have to do that again for a while. It will feel like I'm part-time when I go back to teaching just during the day!

The training last week in Tampa was definitely the best training I had ever attended in my 10 years of computer work. The instructor was from Belguim and was extremely knowledgeable and interactive. We all had plenty of time to ask our own specific questions, which really made the training interesting. At night, as I posted before, most of us would go out to dinner together and just talk geek speak like the IBM commercials you see. It was such a great time of networking with other trainers.

Samuel is doing much better this week! He's pretty much back to normal now. He was extremely lethargic when I got home; didn't each much, didn't want to play, just downright depressed. After lots of belly rubs and time playing soccer, he's back to his old butt waggin self (wags hit butt cause he doesn't have a tail).

Well, hope you are all having a great week and have big plans for the weekend. Wendy and I are going to go see Hide and Seek tonight - can't get enough of horror movies :)

Monday, January 17, 2005

SQL Server 2005 TPrep


This week I'm in Tampa, Fl, attending a Trainer Prep course for SQL Server 2005. Great group of people and a pretty good class so far. We all went out for suppah tonight at a place called Rockaway Grill in Clearwater. Great little dive of a place with an awesome piece of steak.


What an exciting group of geeks.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Personal Update

Since I haven't posted in a while and now have reason to ... I thought I would do the same as everyone else and give a blurb on what I've been up to since high school.

I'll start with college :) As most of you know, I graduated from PCC with a BS in Computer Science, whadda geek. The summer of 1995 was AWESOME! On one of my many waterskiing trips that summer, I met up with a camp director who was looking for a computer instructor. After talking with him, he was also looking for an experienced waterskier who could teach competition level skiing to campers. Well, what a perfect fit that was. AND - the camp was an all girls camp. This was the most amazing camp I had ever seen - shocked it was in Maine. They had professional size water slides, olympic size pool, 8 tennis courts with tennis pros from Florida, gymnastics with the Russian olympic coach instructing, photography, rops courses, equestrian, acting, radio and video broadcasting, computer programming (me), competition waterskiing and so much more. I loved it!

Through that job, I met a programmer who recommended me for a job in Lewiston. A company called FISC that handled financial services for over 60 banks in Maine. I was the network and database administrator there for almost 5 years. Learned alot but it was a very high pressure job. Before I got burned out, I found a job at VTEC in Portland. They are a Microsoft Learning Solutions Provider. I've been there almost 5 years and have achieve several levels of certification along the way - enjoying every minute of it. I split my time between teaching Access, SQL Server, Crystal Reports, Visio, Visual Basic .NET and working as a contract developer for several of our clients. Through VTEC, I've worked at Irving, Sappi, Anthem, LL Bean, State of Maine and several other companies. It's something different everyday and I really do believe I have the perfect job. It does require lots of studying, to stay up with the latest greatest, but I love technology, so that's fine with me.

Once I moved to Lewiston for my first job, I started attending Auburn Baptist Church, where I met my beautiful wife Wendy, the pastor's daughter (we all know how they can be). We married October 4, 1997 and are expecting our first son this April :) Me as a parent?? Wow, THAT ought to be interesting.

As I've mentioned on Friends Cafe we have an Australian Shepherd - who's pictures you can see on this site. We also have 3 guinea pigs - had six but they are getting old and have started dying off.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up the past 10 years. Questions?