POSTS

Chicago

So I’m in Chicago for a work conference. I’m supporting all the IT needs of my company’s booth. It’s going pretty well for the most part. Occasionally you have to try and fix something as quickly as possible that randomly went wrong. Its been kind of fun. The days are long, but its not too bad. The shortest day has been 10 hours.

The cool part is getting to see a big city. Having lived in the suburbs my whole life, it’s quite different. I’m taking the train and/or cabs to work everyday. The buildings are huge and the architecture is impressive. I wish I had time to do some more touristy stuff and see more of the city. I would probably never visit Chicago on my own, so getting to see it while working has been interesting.

Jack is 6 years old!

Today is my son’s birthday. Time seems to be speeding up the older I get.

2008 seems like such a long time ago.

Jack is in kindergarten now. Watching him learn new things is quite amazing.

I can’t believe how good he is at reading.

I laugh at how juvenile and boyish his humour is. I can’t imagine what he’ll be like in jr. high.

He makes me want to be better for him.

PT Test

A new fiscal year in the guard and that means it’s time for a pt test at drill this weekend. Success! I passed. I’m proud of myself for never having failed one in my almost 5 years in the army. Although for some reason I always get nervous about them. This one I was a bit more nervous about since Caroline was just born 3 weeks ago and my training for the test took a serious hit due to taking care of a newborn. But I got over 75% in each category for a score of 236. I’m happy with that. On a side note, I don’t understand how some of these kids continue to fail. You know the test is coming and you know what is required to pass. Just google it! Do the math and put in some effort for a month or two before the test. It’s not rocket science. I’m old and body parts hurt, but I can still pass them. Ok rant over. Bring on the holiday food. Derek

My Growing Family

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted pictures on my blog or website. Mostly because I’m lazy, and with facebook and Amy’s blog, it’s usually easier to just link to those galleries. However, in the spirit of blogging more (even though I don’t expect any high amounts of traffic, I thought I would post some pics of my Family which recently got an addition of Caroline. The photos were taken By Nicole Gillihan. She is a friend and an awesome photographer. You can check out her work on facebook https://www.facebook.com/NicoleGillihanPhotography or her website http://nicolegillihanphotography.com/. Sweet Caroline.             Precious Isabelle.                 Awesome Jack.             Brother and Sister.             Me and Jack.             The whole family.                 Me and Caroline.                 My beautiful wife Amy.             That’s all for now. Later. Derek

Slight Delay

So I’ve been slightly delayed in updating the old blog. I just spent over 2 hours trying to figure out why apache kept railing my server. I tried migrating it twice. I switched between php as an apache module, fastcgi, and fpm. I switched back and forth between apache and nginx. Turns out the likely culprit was over 10k spam comments on my blog. guess I should have updated wordpress and my anti-spam plugins more often. In the mean time, I’ve disabled comments completely site wide. So hopefully that should help. I’ll say I’m going to try and update the blog more, but who knows if I’ll do it. I need to redesign my whole site and my blog. Maybe in my free time between grad school, 3 kids, army, work, and stress. But progress is progress. Derek

Semi-Annual Update

So its been a while. Here are some updates. I started a new job at Cerner in April. I lost 20 lbs in jan-feb. I have since gained 10 of it back due to feet injuries sidelining my exercise. I got my ham radio license and have been starting to play around with that. I went to WLC in April for the Army. We finished one room in the basement before Julie came to visit for 2 weeks in August. Belle is growing so fast and talking with new words everyday. This summer has been filled with alot of car repairs. No fun. Check Amy’s blog for more detailed and regular updates. http://www.wifehatmomhat.com Maybe I will start blogging more.

Changes

So today was my last day at my current job. I start my new job on Monday. It was really weird to walk out of the office for the last time. It was a great 3 1/2 years and I will miss my codero buddies. But hey, that’s what facebook and IM are for. Now it’s on to the next step in my journey as a computer nerd. I am now a linux system administrator for Analysts International Corporation. It is a great career opportunity and I look forward to the chance to further my knowledge and nerdery of all things linux. My next goal is to get my RHCSA cert. That may take a few months but it will be worth it. In other news, Jackson turns 3 in a week! Thats all for now. later. Derek

Back to Civilian Life...

So I’m back from 9 months of training with the army. If you want to know what it was like, go join the army. Or just ask me sometime and I’ll be glad to tell you some stories. So I am back home and adjusting to my civilian life. This includes, but is not limited to the following: not exercising every morning at 5am, having 2 kids now, going back to work, going to army drill once a month, driving my car again, working on the house and other projects in my free time, and trying to limit my intake of caffeine among many other things. So if I haven’t said hi or got a chance to hang out with you yet, give me a few more days or better yet call me. I’d be glad to do whatever. I’m still playing catch-up on my life. Thats all for now. Later. Derek

Off to Training

So it’s off to training today. 9 weeks of basic and then 22 weeks of AIT training. If you need to get ahold of me or want to hear how I’m doing, you will have to get ahold of Amy as she will have the most up to date info. See you all at Christmas when I get leave. The Soldier’s Creed I am an American Soldier. I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself. I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American Soldier.

Site Updates

Updated my email for my server to google apps. No point running a mail server on a dynamic IP that can change and that I can’t set reverse dns up for. So I switched to google apps. It was super easy to set up. Took only 20 minutes. Dns propagated within 30 minutes. My email for my domain now runs through the Gold standard of email service: Gmail. The high availability of google, amazing spam control, the excellent Gmail interface, and pop/imap access are just a few of the features. There are alot of other useful apps available in the free version of google apps as well. I highly recommend taking a look at google apps for your email needs. They have a nice free version and a nicer paid version. So, after the above paragraphs of nerdery, feel free to email me at derek@derekcreason.com.