Happy Anniversary, Trixie

10 years ago, we chose this song as the one to be our first dance at our wedding.


10 years later, it still means as much to us as it did then.

I'm as much a pain in the butt as I was then, if not more. But you never give up on me darlin. Happy Anniversary, babe. I love you. With 10 years down, we've only just begun.

Help the fight to end the fight!

Here is something that we can ALL get behind. Go to http://charity.planetlotus.org and read all about what we as a blogging community can do! Yancy is not only the official "eye-candy" for the Lotus blogging community, he is a Dad and a hell of a nice guy. Let's all give him, his son and all the kids a helping hand.

Long ago and far away

me
Originally uploaded by Macian

Under orders from the Mrs. this evening, I was tasked with uploading all of the digital pictures from the hard drive to Flickr. She's got the scrap booking bug going pretty hard and wants all the old pictures up there. That's when I found this picture.
I figured since our pal Bruce had put one up circa 1986 to be scrutinized by members of his community, (including yours truly), I figured I would return the favor.
Back around 1986, I decided that I was going to be the next Ansel Adams and this was going to be the picture for the back cover. Never did accomplish that Ansel goal but I plan on working on that again now that I don't have to have a darkroom to do all the work.
I look like such a dork. Were did all that hair go?

Denise and I were on TV today!

For the past week, I've been updating a new blog that I created last week called "Life in a dam(med) river valley" about the adventures of living in a river valley experiencing the second 100 year flood in three years. While we were out and about this afternoon, we were waved down by a camera crew from one of the local Cleveland television stations. I of course had to hook up the Windows Media PC to the cable TV coming into the house and record it.

A new look for the blog

For a while now I've been wanting to update the look of my blog. Today I made the jump. Really, the biggest change is the addition of the right hand column. To get that, I had to update the format of the blog to the latest one Blogger supports. I was nervous about it but after doing some design testing in a test blog I created, I found I was able to make it work. Now, all of the blog links will appear on the left and closer to the top. They're there for a reason and I felt they were getting lost way down on the bottom right hand side. Let me know your thoughts as this is a work in progress.

Adios 2007

With 2007 being quickly ushered out the door, I figured it was time for “Andy’s Year in Review”. Insert trumpet sounds here. I’ve started this blog entry several times now, and it’s hard for me to look back and pull out different things that happened this year to expound upon. So, I’ll break it down into a couple of categories.

Lotus Related Stuff
The Lotus world gave us a lot to be excited about this year. The main excitement has all centered on the release of all of the new collaboration tools like Quickr and Connections. Add to the release of beta, then the gold release of Lotus Notes and Domino 8. And we can’t forget about Symphony. IBM has really given the faithful, along with business, a lot to talk about! Many, many other bloggers have written extensively on this topic, so I’m not going to rehash that here. I am however looking forward to the approved upgrade in my environment. Once 8.0.1 hits the streets, then I’m going to start taking a hard look at my environment and see if it’s maybe time to re-tool the way I do a few things with the new upgrade. I’m really looking forward to what they plan on showing us at Lotusphere 2008 on what the future holds.

Work Related Stuff
Work wise, things have continued to go well. I continue to try to build on my skill set as much as I can, when I can. Early in the year, the new DST rules had everyone, including myself, freaking out. Luckily, thanks to the gang at IBM, that came and went without even a bump in the road. I can only think of one instance where someone’s calendar was screwed up, but it was an easy and quick fix. I was able to finally pass my 702 test to upgrade my certification in November. I actually was able to talk my boss into allowing me to go to Admin2007 for the jumpstart sessions. Hopefully, I’ll be able to add that to my agenda for the whole event this coming year. Looking forward to next year, I already have two huge projects on the horizon. One centers around file archiving and retention, and the other is Notes/Domino 8. That’s where I am hoping that I can go to Admin2008 since the upgrade seminar is now part of that event.

Personal Stuff
This year has really been a year of change in the house. I’ve noticed that my kids are starting to make that change from being just kids, into becoming their own people.
Alex has made the big jump to high school this year. Being Autistic and a teenager is an interesting combination. He has overcome many challenges in his life, but he is one kid that is able to do it without a problem. In elementary and middle-school, Alex always had the help of aides to assist him with his day-to-day routines in school. This year he has pretty much set out on his own, with assistance, but no where near as much help as he was used to. He was on the honor roll for the first nine weeks and is heading that way again for the second nine.
Molly continues her rampage through the elementary school. Already there are the crushes on some boys, playing sports and having the occasional bout of the “nobody likes me” at school. But more and more, I see less of that little baby girl that I once had sound asleep across my chest and more of the young lady that is starting to make her appearance. To be honest, it scares crap out of me. But for now, she’s still my little girl and I’m sure that it will always be hard to see her any other way.
The kids aren’t the only ones that have walked an interesting path this year. Over the summer, Denise took over as manager for her Avon district while the regular manager was out on sick leave. As we both learned, being a sales manager is not an easy job at all. But in the end, she was able to meet and exceed both the sales and recruiting goals for her district. She rocks! And to top it all off, she landed a dream job at the end of the year. She now works in a local scrapbook shop and loves it!
Me, well, I rediscovered how much fun photography is this year. I broke down and bought a real digital camera and a couple of lens. I never seem to have the time to get out and take pictures, but I do when I can. I’ve also noticed this past year that my blog has really taken off! More and more hits keep coming in from all over the place.
But what had to be the moment of the year occurred over Memorial Day weekend. The Medusa, aka Jen, and my hedero-life-mate, Eric had been expecting their first child. They called us on that Sunday to let us know that Jen was getting ready to go into the hospital for delivery. So Denise and I took the kids to the hospital and while we were there, we were able to be a part of Sara coming into the world. It was a great day.

So there you have it. Andy’s view of 2007. Lord only knows that 08 has in store for us, but as always, I’m sure it will be another interesting ride!

I've come to a conclusion

We have bad luck with holidays this year. First, there was the trip to Michigan at Thanksgiving and Molly having strep. Then, I thought we made it through Christmas okay. Well, that was until 11:00 PM on Christmas Day. Molly woke up and came out from her bedroom and then proceeded to violently evacuate Christmas dinner from her. (White burber carpet and that just do not mix. The steam cleaner has gotten a workout today.) Not soon after, I fell prey to the dreaded bug. Luckily, not as bad as Molly. Then, Denise got it too. Meanwhile, 'ole "Iron Gut" Alex is un-phased. I think he played it smart. Either staying downstairs playing the Wii or in his room working on some new software he got this Christmas.
And I thought this week off work would be nice and quiet. Who was I kidding. ;-)

And so this is Christmas

I can honestly say that I have no idea how this year went by so fast. As I sit here watching "Spiderman 2" on glorious HDTV after a long day of fighting crowds at the store, it occurred to me that tomorrow night is Christmas Eve already! Yes, I've known that tomorrow is the big night, but it just REALLY occurred to me. Oy!
So to all my friends out there, the ones who I know read this blog and to all the other folks that read this too, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! May the blessings of the season be with you and yours.

" A very Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear"