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This is a news story from the town where I grew up.  I’m so proud.

(From theitem.com)

A 59-year-old man’s rented car was stolen early Tuesday morning by a prostitute he invited back to his motel room, a report said.

About 12:35 a.m., the man said the prostitute — described as black, 30 to 40 years old, wearing a black wig and missing a front tooth — took his wallet valued at $10, change valued at $5 and the keys to a 2008 Nissan Quest valued at $18,000 while he went into the bathroom of his room at a motel in the first block of Broad Street.

The prostitute was reportedly wearing a red shirt and blue jean skirt.

Wow.

So I haven’t exactly been updating the blog a lot lately.  Work got busy, and things there have really just taken all of my time and energy.  I don’t recall ever being a part of so many big projects that happened all together and demanded so much energy from everybody involved like I’ve experienced these past several months.

Data Center Move - We moved our Atlanta data center to a new facility, one with adequate power and space for the company’s continued expansion.  I got a lot of help from the guys at work, but this project was mostly my baby.  The move went well, I’m proud to say (and relieved that it’s finished).

New Servers - We used the data center move as an opportunity to migrate off of some older hardware to some newer equipment.  I setup and managed those migrations.

BetStopper - The Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation is offering software to citizens of Nova Scotia to keep kids away from online gambling sites.  I was a part of that product development.  More info on BetStopper is available here.

McAfee Family Protection - I was also able to be a part of the team on McAfee’s new parental controls product.  You can get McAfee Family Protection here.

And there are other projects happening, but I’m not totally sure we’re talking publicly about them yet.  These are the bigger projects I’ve been a part of lately and are largely what have been keeping me from posting here.  It’s been very rewarding - and I’ve learned a lot - but I’m exhausted.  I know the guys I work with (all of them) are worn out, too.

Several of the guys at work have been friends for a long time.  I’ve known a couple of the guys for more than 12 years (which is more than a third of my life).  These past few months I’ve spent more time with them than I’ve spent at home (or at least it seems that way).  We’ve worked well together, and it shows.  The projects we’ve tackled have produced excellent products that we are all very proud of.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post here more now that these big projects are behind us.  That’s the plan, at least.  I know you all have been on the edge of your seat waiting for more Ron.  Don’t deny it; you know it’s true.  I’m making an extra effort to keep posting so at least pretend for me, ok?

I don’t know what’s worse - that Desmond Hatchet has fathered 21 kids by age 29 or that his nickname is “Drop a Seed.”

I bet this makes you Tennessee folks so proud.

Dear Amy,

I tried. I really did. But I just can’t go on spending my time watching “Parks and Recreaction” any more. You guys gave it a good shot, and I really tried to like the show.  But (I mean this as kindly as possible) your show is just not very good. At all.

Aziz Ansari and Nick Offerman helped the show a little bit.  And Rashida Jones, well, she’s not hard on the eyes at all. She certainly didn’t hurt your chances for success. And she can act, so that’s a bonus. And every once in a while, even you turned out to be kind of funny. Still, that’s not enough for me.

If I were you, I’d blame the writers. Seriously, how did they get 6 episodes out of “we want to build a park where that big hole is”? At best, that’s 3 minutes of content in one episode. To stretch that 3 minutes of hilarity into 3 mind-numbing hours and expect me to continue watching is just cruel. The sarcasm from Aziz and Nick (and even Rashida being Rashida) just aren’t enough for me. I like comedies to be - you know - comedic. Call me crazy, I guess.

So I don’t know what will happen to your show. Personally, I’d like to see you back on SNL (mostly because I don’t watch SNL any more). Maybe if “Parks and Recreation” got some good writers, got you back on SNL, and got some sort of a decent plot, I’d give the show another chance. Until then, I’ll just wait to turn the TV on until “The Office” has started. At least it’s still funny.

Ron

I get a decent amount of local traffic here on the blog, so I wanted to take a minute to recommend Hiram Masterbend to any of you folks in need of car repair.

Over the weekend, I discovered that the alternator in my Mountaineer was bad.  I’ve replaced alternators before, and I didn’t want to deal with it, so I took it to Pee Wee at Hiram Masterbend.  (I blogged about them back in 2007 when they replaced the timing belt on our Camry.)  They replaced the alternator, serpentine belt, and idler pulley and charged me a very reasonable labor charge.

On the same day they were working on the Mountaineer, our Camry overheated.  I had just replaced the radiator (2 weeks ago), and I didn’t want to deal with it, so I told my wife to drop off the Camry when she picked up the Mountaineer.

It turns out that the only thing wrong with the Camry was a bad radiator cap.  $12 later we were back in business with reliable old cars.  He didn’t even charge me a standard diagnostic fee - just $12 for the radiator cap.

With crazy economic times, it’s going to make sense that people hold onto cars a little longer than they may have otherwise, and those cars are probably going to need mechanical work.  If you live anywhere near Hiram, you should take your car to Pee Wee.  I’m very picky about who works on my cars, and I take my cars to him with complete confidence that he will treat me fairly, not recommend unnecessary repairs, and will do good work.

Hiram Masterbend is located at 1434 Hiram-Douglasville Highway in Hiram.  It’s hidden down at the bottom of a long driveway, so it may not be obvious.  Look for the “RV Parking” and “Pet Grooming” signs.  Phone number 770-222-0212.

We went over to hang out at Shane’s house this weekend, and I got the chance to do a little bike riding. Literally.

(Comparison to a circus bear on a tiny bike has already been made, so you’ll have to get more clever than that with the comments.)

He came back.

After that brutal Friday, and that long, quiet Saturday, He came back.

And that one intake of breath in the tomb changes everything. It changes the very reason I drew breath today and the way I move about in this world because I believe He’s coming back again.

The world has gone on for more than two millennia since Jesus’ feet tread the earth He made. What would they have said back then if someone had told them that some two thousand years later we’d still be waiting? They would’ve thought back to that long Saturday and said, “Two thousand years will seem like a breath to you when you finally lay your crown at His feet. We don’t even remember what we were doing on that Saturday, but let me tell you about Sunday morning.

Now that was something.

(Thanks for indulging my insistance of quoting Andrew Peterson yet again.  This one’s from the “Resurrection Letters, vol 2″ liner notes.)

But here we toil and we till the hard earth, where even the warm times with friend and kin are lonely because we know they won’t last long enough to quiet the ache. Our sadness points to Home the way hunger points to the feast, the way the light of the cratered moon is always facing the sun, always pointing to where the dawn will come like a pillar of fire when this rock we walk on turns again to burning day. All over the quiet plains and the cold stone cities full of dying and shame the promise is not drowned out by the weeping; it is declared by it.

God died as a man and rose again, and the sound of the fiery blast of Death exploding shook the firmament. Throughout the wail and shudder, over the shriek and moan of man the thunder has sounded and sung, and it is both the answer and the promise. It sings still, and you can hear what it says if you listen: Love never fails.

(That’s from the liner notes of Andrew Peterson’s “Love & Thunder” CD.)

You know life is busy when you don’t have time to blog when on vacation.  It’s a busy time for me, but I wanted to recap days 3 and 4 of our Spring Training trip.

On Sunday we saw the Braves play the Tigers.  Batting practice got rained out, but they were able to play the game.  Before the game, I spotted Braves announcer (and HOF pitcher) Don Sutton in the broadcast booth.  The window to the booth was low enough that we were able to go say hi and get a baseball signed.  He was really nice and joked around with us for a few minutes.

The game was a good one.  We were seated in row 3, directly behind the Tigers dugout.  There’s something about those up-close seats that’s hard to describe, but it changes the way you see the game.

On Monday our seats were even better - row 1 on the Yankees dugout.  That was probably a once in a lifetime experience.  Yankees tickets are hard to get, but getting seats on the dugout is just unheard of.  We were even sitting at the place where the guys come off the field and go down into the dugout, so every inning the Yankees walked directly toward us.

Pettitte pitched a great game, and we got to see some amazing defense.  The Yankees looked pretty good in March, so maybe that’ll carry over through October.

I’ve got pictures from the trip on my Flickr account.  I’m no photographer, but there are some pretty cool pictures in there.

We started this morning in Stuart, which is a blimp on I-95 just north of Jupiter.  We headed down to Jupiter to see the Cardinals and the Orioles at Roger Dean Stadium.  It was a good game with lots of action.  Our seats were on the first row on the 3rd base line, which is a great place to be when you’re watching a game.

The Orioles bullpen was directly in front of us, so we had the pleasure of not looking over/around anyone to see the game.  The Cardinals fans next to us were a little obnoxious, but other than that it was really nice.

This was our first trip to Roger Dean Stadium.  Usually we center around the Tampa area, so we don’t get to see the teams on the east coast of the state.  The facility was really nice.  The staff was pretty nice, too.  Player access for the visiting team was also good.  I’d like to return sometime, but the distance from the Tampa area could be a problem with scheduling.

After the game, we stayed at the stadium for a while to see if we could find some players signing autographs outside the stadium.  Fortunately the Orioles players were very generous with fans, and they were signing between the players entrance and the players parking lot.  The Marlins share the facility with the Cardinals, and they were also pretty cordial with the fans.

Then we drove across the state to a more familiar territory.  We ate dinner at Capogna’s Dugout, which has some of the best food and baseball atmosphere anywhere.  Now we’re settled in for the evening in Tampa.  Tomorrow morning we head up to Lakeland, our favorite of the Spring Training camps, to see the Braves play the Tigers.  We’ve got great seats (behind Tigers dugout) for that one, too, so it’s sure to be a great time.

We’ll be in Clearwater tomorrow night.  I’ll post more from there.