Still Kickin

Yesterday Jess and I attended the annual Austin "How to Dance Like a Ninja" swing workshop. I did succeed in incapacitating one of my partners, generally classes focused on creative moves and how to making you dance look more fluid... but seriously, one of my partners went down [without any help from me].

We're still doing good down here in Texas. Work is going well for me, and Jess is enjoying her time with projects at home. She makes quilts for all the new babies in the ward, and practices drawing, etc.

I'm trying to still ride the bike to work most days; replaced a couple flats and several spokes this year. I had a good wreck a few weeks back. I tried to dodge a sprinkler just as I was jumping a curb and face-planted in some dirt (thankfully I missed most of the concrete). I wish I had that on video; I guess will just have to wait until we're together in the next life watching "Mortality's Funniest Moments". (Though Bonnie's chair-breaking or Eric's accidental skirt-wearing will probably be more entertaining)

I'm also having fun with our salt-water fish tank. I've added some peppermint shrimp, feather-duster worm. Soft corals (which I got for free/trade): mushroom, kenya tree, teal paly, and pulsing xenia. And just last night I got some free macro-algea. I'm saving up for nice lights, but it will probably be next year before I have the dough. Then I'll be able to try some more demanding corals. But so far, everything is diong well and growing. I'll post some pictures.

Hello from Las Vegas

Jess had a cousin get married this weekend in St. George so we flew down to stay with some family in Las Vegas for the weekend. And No, our flight wasn't on American, so Yes we did still actually fly out on time. It had been over a year since we had seen Jess' side of the family. We hiked around Red Rock Canyon, wedding and reception in St. George, some family card games (Bang) and lots of swimming in the pool. ...and I've been sick, again. I seem to have a knack for getting sick on vacations/travels. We will fly out tonight, and get back to San Antonio around 3am.

Otherwise, not much new. Hard to think well when I'm sick. You'll probably notice this post isn't pouring with the same degree of loquacity mixed with a clever amount of jaunty witticisms.

Well, I'll just have to wait until I'm more up to snuff. Toodle-Pip!

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm now another year older at 28; which is practically 30, which is half-way to 60. As you can see, mathematically-speaking my life is essentially half over (give or take) and I'm just barely getting warmed up.  I better get things together and pull off a good 3rd quarter.

Just kidding about all that hoopla. I've had a great week. For celebration, I've had some of my favorite food (of course). Mama-Jessie's pizza on my birthday, and on saturday we had home-made: Italian Nachos, Italian Cream Soda, and cheese cake (not Italian?). YUMMY! I also got a new game to try out: Smash Bros Brawl. I've managed to avoid video/computer games pretty well, but I made a concession for this one because 1) I knew I would like it and 2) it will be for playing with company, not me spending all hours paying by myself.

My work has been pretty busy and stressful as of late. I'm putting in a lot of hours trying to meet a deadline that is coming up quick. I just seem to keep hitting unexpected obstacles that take some extra time to work through, and so progress keeps slipping. It's been a great learning experience though, and I have enjoyed the opportunity. [FEEL FREE TO SKIP THE REMAINDER IF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU ARE NOT TECHNICALLY INCLINED ;-) ] For those who care for my detail, most of my work is in modifying business services that work with Host data using QPP, CPP, and occasionally some JCL and COBOL. But right now I'm developing a new small application from top to bottom, which means completely new: UI in RAD using java, jsp, and xml; services, classes and methods in QPP/CPP, and SQL and tables in the database. So the biggest holdups have come from working the RAD environment, because of all the complexity, and no one in my group has ever done much UI work.

Jess has been able to leave the site she did not enjoy (hostile environment), and go back to floating which she really enjoyed. So that is awesome, and long in coming. Last Sunday, Jess went through the house hiding plastic eggs with goodies around, and I got to go hunting. It was fun, and she always comes up with some clever hiding spaces that require some hints to find. In fact, we found one egg just this morning. Last year there was an egg in our file that I didn't find for months. :-)

And that's about it. No more fish for the tank for a few weeks, so that any lingering disease/parasites can die off. Also, I'm trying to really grow my tank's small critter population (copepods, amphipods, etc) so that when I do add a Scooter Blenny, he will have lots of tasty-muchie treats to enjoy.

Good Night and Good Luck.

A real post this time

I'm not sure if the title "The Chronicles of Cam Neck Jaw" will stick or not. Cam Neck Jaw is an anagram of Jack McEwan. The title does sound more exciting than just "Jack's Blog" at least.

The previous "Hello World" post is a computer programmer thing. Traditionally the first program you create for any new language is simply a print of "Hello World!", so it seemed appropriate.

On to the real stuff. Here is a brief synopsis of what's going on:
My wife Jess and I have lived in San Antonio TX for over a year now.
We currently have no kids, 1 betta in a bowl, and a Saltwater Fishtank wich has recently became fishless again :-( but still has a cleaner shrimp and 14 snails :-) !
I work at USAA as a Systems/Software Engineer and Jess is working part-time as a director at an afterschool program for elementary kids.
At church I teach the 12-13 year-old Sundayschool and Jess is working in the nursery (1.5-3 year-olds).
We teach weekly swing dancing classes for the San Antonio Swing Dance Society.
We also enjoy playing board&card games and reading.

Since I don't have time to write my whole history in this thing (and you certainly don't have time to read it), I'll skip to just recent happenings. Last week we took a trip to Houston for Lindyfest. It's the largest yearly swing-dance event for the Southwest region, and people come from all over to attend. There were workshops about 1pm to 6:30pm Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and dances from about 9pm to 5:30am Thursday-Sunday. We only attended Friday and Saturday, and ducked out of the dances before 2am, but that was still over 12 hours of dancing! We had oportunity to learn from some awesome instructors including Frankie Manning (an original swing dancer who turns 94 in a couple months), and several other famous-in-swing-dancing-circles people.

That's all for today folks. So if you were wondering, now you know; and knowing is half the battle ;-)

Hello World!