Lance’s Ramblings

So, one of the regular KSU folks on irc was in town from California this weekend and he loves to play raquetball. I’ve always wanted to play him (even though I know he’d kick my ass). We actaully got five people to show up to the rec after work yesterday, it was awesome! I was having a blast till midway through my second game against Jim. I was going over the ball on the right side near the wall when my left ankle decided to giveway and roll. I heard two distinctive “POP! POP” sounds and then I felt pain. I knew right then that I had really done something bad to my left ankle.

I sat down outside the court and tried to calm myself down. For some strange reason, I tend to get almost in shock when something big like this happens to me. It took probably 20 minutes for me to calm down enough to try and get up and walk out. I decided to not go to the ER that night and see how it pans out over night.

Morning came and things didn’t seem to be better and I decided to head to the ER and get it xrayed. Luckily things came back that it wasn’t broken, but they put my ankle in a splint anyways to keep it supported.

Needless to say.. the start of this weekend wasn’t the best but hopefully I’ll be back up to par by the time I head out to LWE.

Well, I certainly have been doing a terrible job on keeping my blog up-to-date lately. I apologize for my lack of info! Things have certainly been changing lately for me. For one, I started my new job at K-State being a UNIX Administrator for their enterprise systems at the beginning of June. So far I love the job and am enjoying almost every minute of it. Its certainly the challenge in my career I was looking for (plus the pay increase was nice ).

Also, I’ve had some other recent great things happen in my personal life that I may not have told some folks about. The week I moved back to Manhattan, Kansas I met a girl in the area that was a special ed teacher. We went on a few dates and things went really well. Now we’re seeing each other and life is so great. Its so weird knowing I have someone else I can spend my time with. So for all of those folks out there I know online… this is why I’ve been a little more ‘MIA’ lately. We’re trying to take things slow, but things look promising so far!

In other news, I’ve finally moved into my own apartment. Its sweet!!! Its even bigger than my house is by square footage (1250sqft). I’m moving the last of my stuff from Hiawatha next weekend. Sadly, I’ve had no bites on my house so far. Would be nice to get that chapter done so I dont’ have to spend money/worry about it anymore. Anyways, its getting late and I should head to bed.

Man, its been a while since I’ve put something on my blog! Well, things have certainly been busy for me in the last month or so. For one, I quit my job at RHS and my last day was on May 26th. It was definately sad to leave working there, but I was also glad. After that, I went on a trip to Denver, Colorado with a group of old college friends. We stayed there 5 days and had a blast! I need to upload my pictures at some point. After I returned from that trip, I helped dad by hauling corn via a semi truck to an elevator about 40 miles from our house. Its always fun driving a big semi rig :). During this whole time I was packing and packing stuff up in my house. Finally got it all done (thanks to my mom helping!) Tuesday afternoon. Then we started the trek down the Manahattan and got me moved in with a long time friend Susan.

The rest of the week I’ve just been settling in, getting more things unpacked, and just relaxing. I start my new job on Monday and things should start to get a little more busy for me. Well, thats all for now, more later!

So I had an interesting call last night from the folks at Amazon. Apparently they wanted to setup a phone interview with me for a UNIX sys admin position they had open. I was thinking in my mind: “DOH!” as I had just accepted a position at K-State for a similiar position. Right now I’m wanting to work in a university, but it would have been fun to interview with Amazon anyways. Wonder how far I could have gone and where I’d end up there. But oh well! I kindly told the lady that I had accepted a position already and wasn’t looking for a job anymore.

In other news, I’m putting my house on the market to be sold. Had an older couple look at it last night, but I don’t think they are that interested. This is a new experience for me and I hope I come out on top selling my place.

Well, back to work …

Well, its official. I just accepted an offer from K-State for the UNIX admin position. I’m so excited/scared/nervous/pumped I don’t know what to think. I sincerely hope that I’m making the right decision by moving away and pursing this. I’m 98% sure that this is the right decision. The good thing is that I won’t be very far from home so the move will be not so bad. I’m guessing I’ll be moving down there by the first part of June and starting a few weeks after that.

Thanks for all the support from my friends on this! This is certainly an exciting time for me!

Well, this has certainly been an exciting week for me in the job hunt adventure. It started out with an email from Kansas State University on monday saying that the search committee had looked at my resume and was wondering if I was still interested in the UNIX System Administrator position. So of course I replied that night..

Then yesterday I got another email asking to setup an interview next week. WOOHOO! I decided to have it on Monday since I was planning on a trip there anyways this weekend… so we’ll see how it goes. I’m really nervous about the whole thing since I feel like they may ask questions where I may not know how to answer, or will answer in the wrong way.

Wish me luck!

Woohoo! Today was the big day for my oldest sister Diane to have her C Section Now I have a new niece! Here’s the scoop:

Brenna Rose Ward
7lbs 2.6oz, 19″ long
Born April 19th, 2005 at 8:32AM CDT

Brenna and Diane are doing great so far! Neither had any major issues during the procedure. The only issue they had was the fact that the surgical room was very cold, so the baby took a few hours to warm back up. Mason (her older brother) was so cute this morning when he got to see her for the first time. He was being so careful around her, and even gave her a kiss on the forehead! sooo cute

Anyways, that was my excitement for today

My trip so far has been simply awesome. Hanging out with Charity, the OSL/Gentoo folks have all be a great time. I’ll post more detailed info later, but for now I wanted to show everyone some pictures of the Oregon beaches I saw! Check it out! I forgot to get my camera out for Kveton’s BBQ, but I’ll try and remember to take more pictures in the next few days.

Well, the day has finally arrived. I’m only hours away from making my trip out to Oregon to visit some of my friends out there. I’m so excited! I’ll get to hang out with Corey Shields, Scott Kveton, Alex Polvi, Deedra Waters, and many others! It’ll be great to see the folks that I’ve already met, and meet some of the folks I haven’t met yet.

Probably the most excited part of the trip is going to be meeting Charity for the first time. I’ve been talking with her for the past few months and its been amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person quite like her! She’s hilarious, smart, beautiful, and so much more. I can’t wait to see her!

My flight leaves at 10:15AM CST, then goes to Denver for about a 45min layover. From there I go straight to Portland. Hopefully I should arrive there around 2PM PST and have no troubles picking up my rental car. I plan on being in Oregon till Tuesday when I return home.

Wish me luck!

Man, this week has certainly been interesting. Started off Sunday night telling Scott (my boss) about my future plans. The next day he had a talk with some of the upper management so they knew my position was going to be empty in the future sometime. Just amazing how much things seem to be getting put into place for me. I was glad to hear that they will fill my position once I leave and they might even get a person to deal with the manuals and such. Its just now finally sinking in that this life changing idea will actually happen. Before it was just talk and waiting, now its more like ‘woa, this is actually going to happen’.

I also got a chance to email Scott Kveton about possibly meeting with some of the other IT groups on campus while I’m visiting OSU in a few weeks. I’m pumped about that! If anything, it’ll be nice to meet some other groups and get my name out. I’m really looking forward to possibly moving up there and get out of Kansas. I could use a change of scenery