Season's End

It has been a very long time since I've spent any time blogging, but feel compelled to do so again.  

It's been a busy summer, as are all seasons for the Rolling clan.  We're about to spend some quality family time together, during which it is my intent to be diligent in prayer and meditation regarding several key areas in life.  Essentially, I'm feeling a call to seek God's direction regarding whether or not I'm spending my time on earth doing what is most important.  

Hope you all are having a great summer and I look forward to the coming time of rest and recovery.

Vacation is always too short

Once again, I wind up waiting awake as my vacation ends.  I feel like it went too quickly, that I wasted too much of it, that I wish I had one more day with my kids.

Thankfully, I have two more days when this hit me this year.

Tomorrow we have more fun...

Thus Endeth the Lesson

I just now finished the training material for the EMCTA exam tomorrow afternoon.  I'll spend the morning reviewing and taking the EMC practice exams. 

Wish me luck...

What I'm up to

I started in on a new EMC certification, the EMC Backup Recovery Technology Architect.  You can read my narrations here.

More to come, but not right now...

Suburban: 3, Greg 2 - Game Over

Well, I reassembled the Suburban and fired it up.  I was ecstatic that it started and I drove it for the first time in months.  My heart sank as it lost power after about 15 minutes and I could almost not get it up to 30 miles an hour. 

I did a compression test.  No compression on cylinders 4 or 6.  All others appeared fine, so I tore into it again.  I pulled the valve cover off the passenger side and adjusted the valves.

No compression.

A quick phone call to my good friend Mike, and he confirmed what I feared.  Most likely when I over-tightened the rockers on the initial reassembly, the valves bent.  To repair this will require going even deeper into the engine, pulling the heads and resurfacing them.  Then, we hope there are no holes in the cylinders.  It's more than I'm up for, and I'm a little heartbroken and a little p***ed off.

Beaten by a $1500 truck...

Shucks...

Just want to play

and not be working on this truck anymore.  Confound it, anyhow...

What you don't want pushrods to look like

Poop

Mission: Running Truck

The truck needs to have the lash adjusted.  I followed the Chilton's manual that said to tighten the rockers to 32 ft/pounds, but have since come to the conclusion that either I'm reading that wrong or the manual is unclear.  Either way, thanks to friends who have been here before I'm on the track again.

I took a couple days off work to get this project finished over the holiday weekend.  I just can't find time during my normal life, so now I'll burn a couple days of PTO and get it done.

My first step is to get the valve covers off again.  I was afraid it woe require tearing everything down to the manifold off, which would be a couple hours for a guy like me.  I have not been looking forward to it and procrastinating.

But I started today, and with some cautiously applied pressure and removal of a few wires, I got he covers off in 30 mi utes this morning.

Now to play some laser tag with friends and get back to it in a couple hours.  It's not often I over-estimate time for auto repairs and I'm grateful for the small mercies I receive like today.

How well they understand

Jadyn:  What does chaos mean?

Jeremiah:  It's like a rampage of sin.

No rest for the procrastinator

I've been planning to retake my Cisco Certified Network Associate exam for a few months.  The exam I passed before retires this September, so to keep the review to a minimum I'm working to get it done before then.

I've put it off long enough and the test is scheduled. 

Now I'm studying like crazy to be ready, so the truck gets put on hold.  Music gets put on hold.  Everything gets put on hold.  Every time this happens I resolve to be more dilligent in my skills maintenance, and every time I wait until I have to panic to get anything accomplished.  This appears to be a character flaw.

At any rate, check out my facebook page for announcements of upcoming gigs, who I'm playing with and where to find me next.  The next performance will be in Becker with Green Light Night, August 16th.  I believe this is a private party, but if you get in touch with me I'm sure I can arrange a guest list for your attendance.  Maybe some of my Twin Cities friends would like to make the shorter trip?

More thoughts as they come, otherwise check out my networking blog for the only thing I'm currently thinking about...

So doggone close...

May 10, 2013 I tore apart my 1990 Suburban to replace the lifters.  It's been a challenge all along, but I got it back together tonight.  Two and a half months of work (well, OK, maybe more like a week of work stretched out over two and a half very busy months) and I sat behind the wheel of the truck.

I turned the key.  The motor turned...

...and would not start...

Here's where it was tore down to, and quite frankly the fact that *anything* happened when I turned that key is encouraging.  I'm guessing I've got a timing problem now.  Not bad for a network nerd, if I do say so myself.

Back at the geek stuff

Well, I keep intending to post information about life and thoughts about it and all the other musings I typically generate that I think someone should hear.  I assure you, I have more thoughts than have made it to this blog for quite some time.

Anyhow, the majority of my blogging has been at my "Greg and the Network" blog lately as I prepare to retake my CCNA.  I'm reviewing all my CCNA material and brushing up on the finer points of all sorts of geeky stuff for those who are interested.

Other than that, we're alive and well.  Having just passed 13 years of wedded bliss, we are busy enjoying summer and all that goes with it.  I expect to blog more soon, since summer in Minnesota really only lasts a few weeks anyhow.

Also wanted to make sure you all know that "Green Light Night" is performing on September 21 at O'Brien's Pub in Rice, MN.  I hope to see everyone there.

Resolved to do better

I'm tired of always working hard so that I can work harder.  I'm always so far behind that I may never catch up.  When I go on "vacation" I rarely go far enough to unplug from my cell phone, email and all the emergencies that creep up.  My family waits as I "clean up just one more thing."

My family always seems to have to wait...

But as I sit and watch the rain put out my campfire, I am resolved to start over and do better.  No more will they - the most important - wait for the lesser.  I work more than my share Monday through Friday, and I do it gladly to earn our income.  But no more will they wait and give up the few hours we have together.

I'll do better...

Zero to Awesome in 15 Minutes a Day

I never seem to have enough time to accomplish everything, so I never attempt anything.  After all, what can be accomplished in 15 minutes?  I may as well surf Youtube for old Saturday Night Live clips or cool Stevie Ray Vaughan songs I wish I knew how to play.  Maybe watching them would make me play better...

...and it struck me...

...I'm wasting what little time I have.  Not only am I wasting the little time I have, I'm wasting time I don't have because the things I spend my time on seem to run over the little free time I have.  Then I'm late for the things I must make time to do.  What a downward spiral to feeling like a "zero."

So I've recently started looking at time as if 15 minutes was a large chunk of time.  After all, in 15 minutes I can be out of bed, showered, shaved, dressed and in my car running to work when I oversleep.  In 15 minutes I can read 20-30 email messages, or look over hundreds of RSS feeds.  Fifteen minutes is a relatively significant amount of time in a day when you come to think about it.

The key is in focus and direction.  I always wish I had more time to play guitar, but when I get 15 minutes and don't have a plan, I sit there and wank out on things I already know.  I don't do anything new, or try anything outside my ability, or learn anything at all.  I leave the 15 minutes wishing I had more time and wishing I had accomplished something.  Well no more!

I decided that I would simply begin by planning 15 minutes a day to play guitar, and when I sit down I'm going to have something to actually work on to expand my capabilities.  I grabbed a copy of Sonic Visualizer which is an amazing free tool for learning guitar parts, ripped a copy of Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Love Struck Baby" which is a new song to be performed by Green Light Night in June, and looped through the solo section.  In 15 minutes, I had figured out the first 12 bars of the 36-bar solo!  I have always admired SRV's playing and always wished I knew more of his stuff but never got around to playing any, and here I was 15 minutes and some concentrated focus and I was 1/3 through a new solo.

I felt AWESOME!

And that is why I decided to call this post "Zero to Awesome."  It's not that I am suddenly an awesome guitar player, or that I think I'll ever be a master like Stevie Ray by playing 15 minutes a day.  I will, however, feel much better about how I spend my time.  I will also know more SRV licks than I have before. Since that day, I have completed the "Love Struck Baby" solo, as well as the Brian Setzer solo in Marshall Crenshaw's version of "Crying, Waiting, Hoping."  That's more note-for-note solo transcription in a couple weeks than I've done in 20 years.  Playing is becoming fun again!

So now I'm trying to apply this method to all sorts of things.  I have an upgrade to my CCNA certification due in June.  It's taking more than 15 minutes a day, but on those days where life gets in the way of my geekosity I still get a little in.  The continued return and focus cements what I learned yesterday and the day before and I'm retaining more.  It also helps me keep a head of steam going.

The things I am working on that are difficult to find time to accomplish:

1)  Renew my CCNA Certification by passing the CCNA/Voice test.  This needs to be done by June 24th.
2)  I have a gig to prepare for with Green Light Night on June 16th.
3)  I have a gig to prepare for with Malcolm Cloud's Urban Legend on July 27th.
4)  I have an entertainment center to finish building in the family room
5)  We hope to have some special guests coming to stay with us, and we have work to do on the house

I'll update more as these things take shape.  Either way, I'm actually doing something instead of sitting around, wasting time wishing I was doing something.  I feel good about it, and I hope to keep this momentum going.

Hope to see you at one of the shows this summer.  More on those as they arrive, but for now please hold the date!

I think it's time

We'll be getting a new dog in a couple weeks or less.  I'm looking forward to it.

More as it happens...

Good bye, my good friend

I said goodbye to my buddy Jebediah tonight. He's been suffering from a deep infection in his snout, and stopped eating about a week ago. Try as we might, there was nothing we could do. Tonight after work, he passed away peacefully in my arms.

He used to miss me when I'd go to work. He'd wait for me in the morning by my briefcase like this. I miss him already.

Slept in today

And loved it. The birds were singing like crazy all morning, the windows were open and I just decided that life is too short to rush around today.

I'm glad I did.

A place for everything...

I started a new blog today. I call it "Greg and the Network" and the purpose of it is to keep my geek reviews separate from things that normal people might like reading. So, if you want more thoughts and musings about geeky network stuff, please visit and comment here. Otherwise, I'll make a few checks in here as well.

The normal person news is that I've gone through a bit of a job reshaping at Marco and over the next several months I have some exciting objectives to work on. Most of these objectives are relating to network infrastructure specifically, so I'll be concentrating on that discipline in my study and professional life.

I have some tall orders to fill between now and 2012, but I'll try to keep everyone updated as often as possible, and still get a few chances to play and write music. Man does not live by bits alone...

Spring begins and so do I

April 1st is always an interesting time for me. It's usually the point where I realize that the new year is no longer the new year and I take a look around at what has happened since January 1, and try to decide on the best way to move forward. Typically, that day is accompanied with a serious "Where did the first three months go?!"

There are a lot of really exciting things going on for us right now, and I'll hope to blog about them more as we move forward. One of the exciting things for me is a recent job modification at Marco. I had the extreme pleasure to work with much of the management team over the past week to define some new goals and objectives for my job and career, and I'm planning to blog about what we're doing in the next couple months. (NOTE: For those of you who don't really dig the extreme geek-stuff, I'll try to keep some things in here that are interesting to human beings, also)

I'm in the process of defining those objectives and "putting some hair around the ideas" so to speak. But I thought that I would give a brief bullet-update on the Greg and Sandra Rolling family to keep up to date:

• Greg has new job responsibilities
  
• Sandra developing a new line of clothing for children that I'm excited to see on her blog before long.
• Adrian doing exceptionally well at St Cloud Technical College, which surprises only himself
• Amber and Nick doing well in Ohio - Nick looking at schools to begin a career change
• Grace has a spring recital with the Stroia Ballet Company coming up May 21
• Jeremiah trades his violin for the piano and loving it
• Jadyn finally realizing she is a "big girl" and no longer "the baby"

I'm excited for the summer and ready for the change. There's something about the new growth of spring that always makes me feel a little introspective and hopeful. There are lots of things coming up in the near future, and I'll try to keep everyone updated here. I hope your winter ends with great blessing and the spring brings new life to you.

Still Like New

It was eleven years ago today that I asked Sandra to marry me. I'm still amazed at the entire story of our love, how God brought us together from such distant beginnings and how
He prepared us mentally, emotionally, and even physically for one another. In all my dreams I could never have prepared or created a woman more perfect to be my companion for life. I'm humbled and amazed by it all.

I knew when I proposed that I loved her. I knew I had never met another like her. I knew I wanted it to go on forever, and to never have to leave her arm at the end of the day again.

I thought I knew her so well...

Eleven years later, and I'm still getting to know her more, though. Certainly I know her more than I know any other person in the world. I know I can trust and depend on her like no other. Yet daily I find there is more to know, and I'm still excited and intrigued to know her more.

Certainly love has changed and changed us. I thank the LORD who brought us together and keeps us together, for keeping us fresh and "in love" as much as He gives us the ability to love one another.

Sandra, I love you.