It seems my life is pretty busy these days!  Lots of things going on, and some times I wonder just how much stuff I want to post…. how much stuff other people (family, friends) might even care to read?!  There are days when I feel I should only post the rather large events, and other times I think it’d be cool to post what I’m doing at any given hour (minute?)!   True, many people would probably not be interesting in THAT amount of detail, but some might be… if only for a particular day, week, event, etc.  It could also be interesting to look back at a year or two later, but again… with too many minor details it might be TOO much!

I think what I’ll do is try to keep this blog for some of the more general things going on.  And perhaps use my Twitter account () to give up to the minute happenings (if it’s worth reporting – which is relative… AND current-mood sensitive)

So, what’s been going on the last couple days?

RHCX – work
I’ve taken the Red Hat RHCX certification class, and passed the live hands-on test!   One thing I REALLY like about Red Hat certifications, is there is never any multiple guess.  Almost makes the cert meaningless.  In stead, Red Hat asks that candidates sit in front of a live machine, and preform tasks X, Y and Z in a certain amount of time.  If you can do it (without notes) according to the test guidelines, then you pass.  Otherwise,  you don’t pass.  If you do a search on http://redhat.com for things like “RHCE passing rate” you’ll find reference to an ‘Official Pass Rate’ hovering around 45% and others like 12,000 tests taken and 6,000 certs handed out (rounded numbers), which I think is interesting, because many people take it multiple times, which means the pass-rate for First Time Takers is probably a decent amount lower than 50%.

Exercise:
On the fitness front, I’ve started my jogging regiment, yet again.  Fairly proud of myself for doing my 2 mile track the first day back after almost a year.  Although I will admit I only jogged about 1.5 miles of it, with the first mile done in 10 min as usual!  However, I was VERY winded afterward, and legs TOTALLY sore the next day… so much so that I couldn’t jog again for a couple more days. I guess about 4 days later I did the 2 miles again.  This time took 11 min for the first mile, but breathing was amazingly improved, and I felt good enough to go again the next day…. I’ll certainly keep the ‘exercise’ progress on ongoing updates as in the past.

 House:
I’ve finally made the FIRM decision to rent out the house I’ve been living in (originally MEANT as a rent house 4 years ago!)  I’ll be selling off a bunch of old stuff I just don’t use on a regular basis.  Probably more than 50% of the things I own… and some things I have owned for over 20 years.  I just feel this need right now to ‘live lite’… and perhaps the feeling of wiping away the old and starting with a clean slate. I also plan on taking pictures of a bunch of items I’ve just been hanging on to as memorabilia, when I don’t really look at them much.  I think it might be more cool to have a picture (taking less space) which I could have online in an album for other to see and comment on, as well as evening hanging on my full hall of pics.  As I rent this one out I’m thinking of buying my permanent house just outside of Austin… probably on 4-6 acres of land in the hill country.  Hopefully with some running water, but at least sloped/hilly land, tons of trees, and probably a log cabin-ish looking house.  I’m sure you’ll find out just after I do. :)

Guess that’s enough for now.   LOTS to do!

Family

Every Tuesday (for now) I have tentative plans with my father and sister that we meet for lunch. Dad’s been passing it up a bit more often than I’d like, but he’s going through a lot right now. He’s moved in with HIS father, who is turning 94 in a couple months, but is deteriorating rather quickly. It seems within the last week or two my grandfather is starting to lose more bladder/bowel control… and/or maybe it’s just that he can’t get himself up to go to the restroom, and has not been asking my father for help as much as he should be? Anyway, my father was stuck cleaning up today’s “mess”. My sister also mentioned he was looking for some service to keep the house clean, and also someone to do things like bathe and groom my grandfather. I decided to offer MY help for doing some of the house work. If he’s gonna pay someone, it might as well be me… I’ve got more free time than I know what to do with right now. So, I spent 3 hours over there doing some cleaning.. WOW, did it need the work!

10k run

In other events… i’ve not done my running today (yet?), but will probably continue to post the progress on my ActiveBrain (My Little Experiments) blog. So if you’re interested, be sure to check for details there.

Stocks

During lunch I got a text message about a stock (CMED) dropping below $23.15, which was the price to sell short, but I was at lunch (and then at Grandfather’s house), so didn’t make any trades today. Possible a very good thing as the stock then proceeded to climb almost to the stop price! But, I’ll watch what it does early tomorrow, it could be an AWESOME opportunity to sell higher as long as it doesn’t break above $23.42, but I’ll post more about that on the Financial Jetstream blog.

Second Life

Today on Second Life, it looks like another L$200 from camping. Also, at lunch my father told me he was bringing in about US$100/mo from his efforts!! Also that he’s starting to experiment a little with renting out some land. Maybe there’s some way I can help him promote that. hmmm.

Today I managed to run the complete 3 miles without stopping!

This last weekend I was talking to my friend Darrell (who will be running the 10k with me next month).  He’s got a bit more experience running, and so I mentioned to him that I was a bit frustrated with my lack of progress over the last month.  It’s been a long time since the last post, but for the past 2 weeks I have been running 4 out of the 5 weekdays (I’ll post more about that later), but have only been jogging the first mile, and then doing a walk/jog combination on the last 2 miles.  My total completion time is always about 31-32 minutes with VERY little variation.  The first mile is always done in about 9:30 (min:sec).  He suggested I REALLY slow down on that first mile, and then push through the next two.

So today, that’s what I did.  I completed the first mile in 10:40, the second mile by 21:02, and the third by 32:30, which means that my overall time stayed the same, but I reached the goal of running the entire course.  I was able to keep my breathing very controlled until the last half of the last mile, and then it did get just a little faster, but not as much as the previous weeks. My legs are quite a bit more sore though!  So, time to up the protein drinks.

As for the weather. It’s starting the get a little warmer.  I started the run at 16:00 again today, and did a bit more sweating than the last couple weeks.  I enjoy getting the extra sun, but might need to go back to my early morning runs before too much longer.