My buddy Jeremy came over today and we started and finished a fun project.  Jeremy’s hobby is recombining old audio equipment into a great sounding setup.  On his own system, he got rid of a very expensive audiophile setup in favor of the results that he could produce himself.  After he let me listen to his setup, I was very interested in understanding more about what he does.  He prefers an open baffle setup, where full range speakers are mounted into a flat panel and modified to produce high end sound.

Several months ago, we headed to IKEA and picked up two VIKA AMON tabletops for around $10 apiece.  Today, these tabletops got outfitted with some homemade backs similar to an easel back to stand them up.  The modified speakers were mounted near the bottom for now, with plans to add tweeters and subwoofers later.  The whole project took about $50 and 4 hours to put together from start to finish, and it turned out great!  We did a test-run of the speaker setup and it’s great… the other benefit is that they stand up very flat and can be stored away… that’s important with the limited space and curious toddler situation that we’ve got going on right now.

A few fun things… first, forstener bits are awesome.  I got several of them and got to use them today.  Second, the VIKA AMON tabletops are constructed interestingly (and ideally) for this project.  They are made of around 1/16″ of hard formica-style surface on each side, and a weird heavy-duty corrugated cardboard honeycomb on the inside.  That makes it light and easy to work with.  Last, but certainly not least… it was fun to do a little side project.  Now I’ve got a great new speaker setup for not much money, and I know a little more about how these tools work.  This will help my guitarbuilding projects even more!

That’s all for now!

God and Family

For the first time in my entire adult life, I am putting God first.  I have done more in the last 18 months to reintroduce myself to the Catholic faith than ever, and it feels GREAT.  The catalyst for this change should be obvious to anyone that has looked at my Facebook feed in the last year: it was the birth of my daughter, Eve.  I realized that if I was going to baptize and raise her as a Catholic, I should better know the proper things that I ought to be teaching her and be sure that I could answer questions from her as they arise (in the future, obviously).  That led me to the That Man Is You! men’s fellowship, then to the Knights of Columbus, and then to my own personal studies in Catholic apologetics.  I embarked upon all of the proceeding activities with three main goals: become a better man, be a better father for Eve, and be a better husband for Tasha.

Skeptical?  Good, so was I… when I went into the That Man Is You! introductory classes, I decided to go in with an open mind and left any baggage (and there was a LOT) at the door and actually strive to learn what the Catholic Church actually teaches instead of what I heard translated through people wronged in some way by the Church, by media, or by hearsay.  I was pleased to find that the more I dug, the more I felt uplifted and empowered.  I could go on and on with details (and I may someday) but I think a single quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen about sums it up: “There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church.”  The more I read the actual teachings of Christ and the Magisterium, the more the false perception drops away.

That was a long windy paragraph, but I can continue on now… it won’t surprise you to know that necessarily my second main priority has been my family.  I help put Eve to bed most every night, we have playtime together when I’m home from work, or at a minimum I help feed her dinner.  Tasha and I are trying to get a little “no computer” time each night so we stay connected at a level that doesn’t involve picking up toys.  She also participates in the Ladies Auxiliary, which operates alongside the Knights of Columbus (so we do Church activities together).  We’re applying the above lessons from the Church directly to our family, and our family is getting better all the way to it’s core.

Work / Life Balance

This topic has often been used in a sarcastic tone in my immediate past, but the priorities toward God and family have put work in it’s rightful place.  I still have to aggressively participate in my job when I’m at the office, but I take time in the morning to see Eve before I go, and so long as the sky isn’t falling I leave at a generally reasonable hour.  It takes some effort, and occasionally things shift around so long nights are necessary but they are the exception now.  There is some extracurricular work research that doesn’t get done now, but I’m finding ways to fit that in to my work day in creative ways.  Another important addition is that I’m taking certain status meetings on the road, and I mean that literally: some of my coworkers and I discuss work status and actually take a walk along a running trail that goes around our office instead of sitting in the cube farm all day.  It’s still important work, but it’s relaxing too.

The time I’m not spending on the above activities has been divided among my other interests.  Karate isn’t getting the focus that it used to, and I am somewhat conflicted about that.  I do my best to attend class (and I really need to Facebook/blog when I do make it) but it hasn’t been aligning with my schedule in the best ways right now.  I need to work on that.  I know some of my karate compatriots back home are reading this and worrying to themselves (and possibly others) that I’m quitting or dropping out, and that’s just not the case.  I still attend class, and I enjoy it when I do.  The burner’s still on, but it’s set to LOW for a bit while I work on some other things.  Eventually, I’ll put some tape on it and get over it.

My other hobbies, such as reading and guitar playing/building do occupy some time, but it’s usually evenings or the spare weekend day.  I am going to make some weekend time for getting started on my guitarbuilding hobby, so expect to see some entertaining posts in the Recreation category.

So what’s the point?

None, really.  The reason I committed all this to the blog is to acknowledge efforts toward closing some deficiencies and to reflect on the positive changes this has made on my life.  These changes have been working for me right now, and I intend to continue with them.

Eve is getting much bigger and more active.  She finally broke her cycle of hovering near the statistical bottom of the weight chart, and is just on the verge of learning how to walk.  She had a minor meltdown at church today, those are usually very rare and far between.  We think it was a combination of being too tired and some diaper rash that she’s picked up over the last few days.  Or teething.  It could also be teething.

Speaking for a moment about my 2012 goals… my book-reading goal has been struck with some attention-deficit disorder.  I have several books underway, opting to read a few pages each night.  One is close to being completed now, and before long I will have strong motivation to finish my guitarbuilding books since I will be starting on a few of those projects as soon as the warm weather is consistent.  The short of it: expect to see some progress soon.

I am trying to get into the habit of blogging again, but honestly participating in life is taking the place of actually writing about it.  Please excuse any long expanse of whitespace here, know that I’m out in the world doing interesting things and I will eventually return here to write about them as time allows.  It is often much more convenient to use social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc) to provide a day-to-day view of what I’m doing.  More soon!

The idea is simple: the world is noisy and attention grabbing, and forces us to not spend our attention on the things that really matter.  So this week Tasha and I are going to spend our time reading more, praying more, reflecting more, and spending more time with family and friends.  I am going to completely remove TV and limit myself to only an hour of Internet time each day (outside of work, obviously).  Interestingly, one of our local grade schools is doing Screen Free Week this week so our neighborhood will be experiencing a general trend of less TV and Internet use.

So don’t be alarmed if you don’t see me online.  If something is important, please call my phone or text me.

Goal 1: Save 3-6 months in an emergency fund.

Task 2: Get taxes prepared (hope for a refund!) and save $500 more this month.

Success on both parts of this goal.  We were able to save $500 since I set this task up, and today we got our tax return prepared.  Thanks to an increase in charitable donations and the arrival of Eve, we got a pretty fat return this year.  This brings us much closer to our overall emergency fund.  Once the direct transfer hits, we’ll have to do some math and see what the next task will be.  In the meantime:

Task 3: While waiting for the tax return to hit, budget aggressively and put a set amount in the emergency fund each month.

Onward to the Reading goal!

Goal 3: Read more books, targeting 10 non-fiction books for the year.

Tonight I finished a book by Joan Carroll Cruz called “Eucharistic Miracles“.  Like the title indicates, this is a collection of history surrounding the many miracles attributed to the holy Eucharist.  This book was pretty dense, since most of the chapters were only a few pages long and each story was unique and interesting.  I found out about this book from a guy in my That Man Is You! group, who was reading it himself.  I would strongly recommend this to any of my Catholic friends and family.  If you’re interested to find out more about the book let me know.  I got a lot out of reading it, and it compelled me to volunteer to help with the Eucharistic Ministry at my Church.

I’m only going to give myself half credit for this book since I technically started it last year.

Total Books Read in 2012: 1 / 10

Since this wasn’t one of my scheduled non-fiction reads this year, I’ll just keep with the same goal that I made last time:

Task 3: Finish reading Ervin Somogyi’s ‘The Responsive Guitar’ for half-credit.

That’s all for now!

As nice as it is to be coding, the change that I am referring to is more exciting.

Providing all the final plans go well, next week I will be travelling to Switzerland and Austria for work.  I’m excited about this because I have never been outside the country, but nervous for this very same reason.  It will be an exciting adventure, however the run-up to this trip means that I will be spending some late nights coding and then I will be away for a week.  That’s about two weeks being at least somewhat absent from Tasha and Eve, which is tough as well.

The fun parts: I will get to see an ocean.  I will get (and then loathe) international plane rides.  I will get to see the inside of European office buildings.  I might even get to see a sight or two while we’re there.  I wish there was a way that Tasha and Eve could come along!

Goal 1: Save 3-6 months in an emergency fund.

Task 1: Survive until February, sticking to the budget and conserving money where possible.

Since it’s February 1, this task is complete!  We even ended up with about $400 left over in our emergency fund.  I’m happy to report that the new water heater is continuing to produce hot water, so the money was well spent.  I’ve looked back at our budgets for the last few years (yes, I keep them… pretty sick, I know) and our budgets remain pretty slim through the first quarter.  I suspect that is going to happen again this year, as we have budgeted for tax preparation and Teddy needs a phenobarbitol levels test too.

Task 2: Get taxes prepared (hope for a refund!) and save $500 more this month.

Onward and upward!

Today at work, I got into it with one of our Technical Managers who was hellbent on trying to design our system during a high level planning workshop.  These workshops have a way of bringing out the worst in me… stuck in a training room with 18 people, only 8 of which actually give a crap about the stuff that is getting proposed is not a recipe to endear me to days of productivity.  At very least it becomes a cautionary tale of what not to do.

So I came home from work tonight and had to go back out to Church to help set up some AV equipment.  I got Eve all situated, and we ended up on the road.  We were in a 40 mph zone, and this white SUV in front of me was doing about 20 for quite a long time.  I wasn’t tailgating him, but I was secretly (outwardly) wishing that he’d step on the gas.  I eventually get tired of waiting for him to learn to drive, so I switch lanes to go around him and he flips me off.  I looked a him perplexed for a second, since his inability to drive must have angered him so much that he took it out on me.

Last, but certainly not least, we have a woman at Church who felt it necessary to lay into my friend Tom and I for getting the AV equipment set up for our session.  There is a big common area at our Church center, so we pulled all the equipment into the galley to set it up in order to not disturb her class that was taking place in said common area.  We ultimately needed to plug it in to a jack in the common area, so with about 3 minutes left at the end of her class we went and wheeled the cart into the area.  Note: her class was at the back of the area and there was nobody remotely near us.  We do our thing (less than 10 minutes) and are headed out.  She stops us and says “for future reference, I’m going to need you to wait until the class is over entirely before you are moving through.  I have to, because of the children.”  My first response was apology, and a question of how we bothered things by moving the cart through the common area.  She repeated her request.  I thought for a second she was actually in one of the classrooms (again, we were so far away I didn’t recognize her as being part of the common area class) and asked if we accidentally switched on the equipment in the classrooms and that’s what distracted her.  She didn’t acknowledge any of this and repeated herself again.  I said “ohh….. kay…..” and turned to go.  My friend Tom said (loudly, within earshot) “Don’t worry about her, she’s just a control freak” and away we went.

Now I’m sitting here in my house, the baby is asleep, and the only asshole to be found is my dog who is consistently sleepfarting right now.  I think I’m going to go out in the back yard now, and hope I don’t run in to any more.

After the marathon Church session, Tasha and I headed out to Denny’s for lunch and then home for some relaxation prior to a game night at The Ballews.  Just like that, another weekend disappears!  This week is going to be a whirlwind at work, so I’m going to have to find some weeknights to unwind between here and there.  Cross your fingers for me!

Jeremy delights in taking old discarded equipment and stripping them down for components, then using those components to create an excellent audio experience.  We struck out on the audio equipment front, but we did find a cache of old vinyl.  I added 7 new records to my collection and spent less than $8, he added another 25.  I got stuff from Billy Joel, Elton John, Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, and for some reason I don’t quite understand Godspell.  I think I remember my Mom really liking that musical and for $1 I didn’t question my gut.

After that I had to go and get my final measurements for my tuxedo sorted out.  It went smoothly and it is currently being tailored so I can pick it up next weekend.  I also had a 40% off coupon that came through my email, as well as other sales.  Eric, the person helping me out at Men’s Wearhouse, took very good care of me and had found a tux that was 50% off, shoes that were 50% off, and applied the 40% for the coupon so I made out pretty well.  While I was standing at the checkout, I decided to pick up an extra shirt too.

To wrap up the day, I went to Church.  In light of the big Denver game (which turned out disastrous), we opted to change the format slightly so we could keep it short for everyone that wanted to watch the game.  So I ended up just going to to the front of the Church and getting introduced and didn’t have to do any talking yet.  It was a nice primer to get used to having a few hundred people staring at me again.  Next week it will be my turn though!

Tomorrow I will be doing that same thing three more times, then lunch followed by a get-together with our friends.  Where did this weekend go?