Where Does the Time Go?

I can't tell you how many times I've come over to the site and thought about posting something. There have been many days where I've wanted to sit down and just mull over thoughts -- just to process things. For whatever reason, I've never actually just sit down and wrote a post.

Time seems to be absolutely flying by. Between work, family time, burning the midnight oil for the odd side-job, the occasional game of Starcraft 2 or time spent reading, and my semi-weekly running sessions, I seem to be in a constant state of movement.

Over at "Classy Llama Studios":http://classyllama.com, things are moving right along. My official job title is "Solutions Architect" but I've focusing primarily on technical sales. It has been a challenge on several levels. The first is that it doesn't really give one an opportunity to code much. I find various ways of sneaking it in, though. Another is that there are many, many facets to selling eCommerce sites. It's hard to cover everything in a short period of time. Probably the best part is I get to work with a guy named Kyle. We work pretty well together and we communicate pretty darn well, too.

There is some actual Solutions Architecting going on now though. It has unleashed a new slurry of challenges but it feels much more towards my "center of gravity" if you will. My hope is that I'll get to do more actual work in that realm in addition to the sales stuff that I've already been doing. Oh, and I got "Magento Certified":http://www.magentocommerce.com/certification/directory/dev/69176/!

Asher is now some 20-months old. He is a real busy-body. He gets into everything. Rarely will you find him sitting in one place for more than 20 seconds. A few words have entered his vocabulary. The first one we noticed was "thank you." We've heard a few other words "two", "yes", "no", "momma", "daddy", "Asher", "sissy", and "up." I'm curious to know why he seems to say "two" so often but not "one" or "three" which often precede and follow it. Who knows.

I still do the occasional work for some old clients. Mainly Drupal stuff. I can't say how nice it is to do Drupal stuff after plodding along with Magento for several months. I like Magento, don't get me wrong! It just so happens that Drupal is much more frictionless and easier to develop with. I cherish my Drupal time. It appears in the near future there are going to be some times over at Classy Llama where Drupal will get to shine. Our new site is going to be Drupal. We're even doing some Magento/Drupal integration stuff. It's pretty snazzy.

A cadre of folks at the office have taken to StarCraft 2. Since I've owned a copy, I've been playing with them. Man, I'm bad. I was pretty good at the original StarCraft. My old build orders and tactics just don't work for SC2. Oh well.

My wife bought me a "Kindle Fire":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051VVOB2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nickvaha-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0051VVOB2 for Christmas. Since then, I've downloaded many of the freely available books as well as purchased several with a gift card that one of my family members gave me. It has been very nice. It actually gets used. I'm not sure how many books I've read. Probably somewhere around 9 or 10 so far this year. I love how you can send the Kindle PDFs and this "Send to Kindle bookmarklet":http://www.klip.me/sendtokindle/ gets used probably once a week. It makes it easy to send longer blog articles to my Kindle for later reading. Stuff actually gets read this way!

Running has been something I've always enjoyed. I used to listen to quite a bit of music while I ran. Although I enjoy music, it gets hard to continuously find a steady stream of new music to listen to. This is especially true as the workouts get longer and longer. I've run 3 miles the last 3 workouts. Instead of listening to music, though, I've been listening to podcasts. Man, these are great. Not only are they edifying, but they have really helped me to expand my knowledge of the scriptures, of different religions, and different sets of beliefs within Christianity.

If you want to be challenged, I would suggest you check out any of these podcasts:

• "The Dividing Line":http://aomin.org/podcast.xml ("Blog":http://www.aomin.org/) - The one that started it all. I've been listening to this podcast now for a few months. Extremely edifying and I'm always learning something. Dr. White has been in many, many debates and I think what got me going on this was his King James Only Controversy book. It has much to say about the veracity of the Bible and cults and sects that are KJV-only.
• "Theopologetics":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=385885143 ("iTunes":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=385885143) ("Blog":http://www.theopologetics.com/) - I'm not entirely sure how I found Chris's podcast, but I am sure glad I did. It may have been the early Annihilationism debate that got me started on his podcast. Again, a great podcast that covers a wide range of topics. Very edifying.
• "The Preterist Podcast":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274537691 ("Blog":http://www.preteristpodcast.com/) - Dee Dee Warren hosts this interesting podcast about preterism. I was new to preterism when I first started listening to the podcast. I can't exactly say how much I've enjoyed not just her wit and sarcasm, but also the overall content and the amount of work she has put into documenting and citing her work. Highly recommended.

I do plan on updating more. We'll see how that goes.